Background
ST. Francis of Sales was born of noble parents on 21 August in 1567, at Thorens, in the duchy of Savoy. He was baptized under the name of Francis Bonaventure.
ST. Francis of Sales was born of noble parents on 21 August in 1567, at Thorens, in the duchy of Savoy. He was baptized under the name of Francis Bonaventure.
At the age of eight ST. Francis of Sales was sent to the College at Annecy, and from 1583 until 1588 studied rhetoric and humanities at the University of Paris under the direction of the Jesuits. For four more years, he studied law at the University of Padua. During this time he distinguished himself by his scholarship.
ST. Francis of Sales was ordained priest on Dec. 18, 1593, and a few days later was installed as provost of the Chapter of Geneva, a post in the patronage of the pope.
In 1594 he started on a mission to reconvert to Catholicism the province of Chablais, a district that had embraced Calvinism in 1535. Despite great personal dangers, he was successful and made innumerable converts. In 1599 Claude de Granier, Bishop of Geneva, chose Francis as his coadjutor, and on the death of Granier in 1602, Francis succeeded to the see.
His writings were voluminous. He engaged in an immense correspondence, consisting mainly of letters of spiritual direction.
The Visitation Order was Francis' principal work and the perpetuation of his doctrine and spirit.
In 1610, together with St. Jeanne Francoise de Chantal, whose spiritual director he had become in 1603, he founded the Institute of the Visitation of the Blessed Virgin. Their aim was to secure the benefit of the religious life for young girls and widows who felt themselves called to the religious life but who had neither the physical strength for nor the attraction to the austerities common to religious orders of that time.
He was beatified by Alexander VII in 1661 and canonized by the same pope in 1665; his feast is celebrated on January 24. He was proclaimed Doctor of the Church by Pope Pius IX in 1877.
