Friday, January 24, 2014

January 24: St. Francis de Sales

St. Francis de Sales
Dordogne, France
Photo by Pére Igor

History

When Francis was a priest, a lot of people left the Church and started their own versions of Christianity. Francis decided it was his job to get about 60,000 people in Switzerland to come back to the Church. Nobody but his cousin would help him. For three years, people slammed doors in his face and threw rocks at him. Even his cousin gave up on him. Finally, Francis wrote out sermons by hand and slipped them under doors. That’s the first time anybody wrote a religious tract to teach people the truth. Francis didn’t win back all the people, but he did convince 40,000 of them to come back to the Church.

Activity

Saint Francis de Sales wrote a book called “Introduction to the Devout Life.” In that book, he told people that prayer was the key to loving God. "By turning your eyes on God...” he wrote, “your whole soul will be filled with God.” Today, color a picture of the Lord and hang it in your room where you can “turn your eyes” on it all the time as a reminder to pray. Here’s a simple one, here’s one of Jesus ascending into heaven, and here’s one of Jesus praying in the Garden

Saint Francis de Sales, pray for us!

More reading for parents:


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