St. Francis de Sales - Consoling Thoughts on Trials of an Interior Life

Copyright 2013 TAN Books, an Imprint of Saint Benedict Press, LLC.

Published by Fr. Pustet & Co., New York & Cincinnati, Printer to the Holy See and the S. Congregation of Rites, in 1912, under the title The Consoling Thoughts of St. Francis de Sales . A French edition of this work, apparently an earlier edition, was published in Paris in 1857 as Pensees consolantes de Saint Francois de Sales . The compilers surname is sometimes spelled Hoguet; his first name was given as Paul in the French edition. Retypeset in 2013 by TAN Books.

Cover design by Caroline Kiser.

Cover image: Nepomuk Takes the Confession of the Queen of Bohemia, Crespi, Giuseppe Maria (Lo Spagnuolo) (16651747) / Galleria Sabauda, Turin, Italy / The Bridgeman Art Library

ISBN: 978-0-89555-214-3

Printed and bound in the United States of America.

TAN Books

An Imprint of Saint Benedict Press, LLC

Charlotte, North Carolina

2013

S T . F RANCIS DE S ALES L OVING H EART

Through a great part of my soul I am poor and weak, but I have a boundless and almost immutable affection for those who favor me with their friendship. Whoever challenges me in the contest of friendship must be very determined, for I spare no effort. There is no person in the world who has a heart more tender and affectionate towards his friends than I, or one who feels a separation more acutely.St. Francis de Sales.

It has pleased God to make my heart thus. I wish to love this dear neighbor ever so muchever so much I wish to love him! Oh! When shall we be all melted away in meekness and charity towards our neighbor! I have given him my whole person, my means, my affections, that they may serve him in all his wants.St. Francis de Sales.

CONTENTS

P UBLISHER S P REFACE

S T. FRANCIS de Sales was a man of great passion. Reading his thought is to know his heart. Has Holy Mother Church ever reared a child so willing and able to express his longing for perfect union with God? Has a man so learned ever presented Truth and Beauty so simply?

Words cannot fully express the Publishers appreciation for this Gentle Saint, the Bishop of Geneva and Doctor of the Church. Saint Francis was a lawyer, a theologian, and a missionary. As a young priest, he volunteered to re-evangelize the Calvinist of Chablais, France. He preached not only with conviction, but also with unparalleled gentleness and grace. He worked tirelessly, even under the cover of night, slipping his apologetic writings beneath the doors of anti-Catholics. The Lord rewarded him with one of the most remarkable and well-documented events in Catholic history when nearly the entire population of 72,000 Calvinists returned to the Faith.

This volume, Consoling Thoughts , is representative of why St. Francis was so well-received in Chablais, and indeed, throughout history. Perhaps more than any other saint, St. Francis preached truth with love. His teachings, his works, and his very presence were consoling to those 72,000 lost souls of Chablais and to millions of more over the centuries. Now, then, it is our hope that they will offer consolation to a new generation of Catholics.

It is for this reason that TAN Books is proud to bring this compilation of St. Francis writings back to print. Initially published in a single volume, we now present this work in a four volume series, carefully arranged by topic to give solace in times of darkness, or, simply in times of deep meditation.

It is the Publishers sincere hope that Consoling Thoughts finds a permanent home in your library and among our long list of Saint Francis de Sales classics, including Introduction to the Devout Life , Treatise on the Love of God , Catholic Controversies , and Sermons of St. Francis de Sales (in four volumes).

Saint Francis de Sales, Doctor of the Church, Pray For Us.

R OBERT M. G ALLAGHER , P UBLISHER

November 19, 2012

P REFACE TO THE S IXTH F RENCH E DITION

By Pre Huguet

S IX editions of this little work, published in a short time, tell better than any words of ours the popularity which St. Francis de Sales enjoys amongst us. Many sick and wounded souls have found in these sweet and affecting pages a heavenly consolation.

Encouraged by this success, the honor of which belongs to God and His blessed servant, we have again with pen in hand run through the works of the Bishop of Geneva, to glean carefully whatever had escaped us on our former tour. Nor has our labor been in vain; we have gathered new flowers, whose beauty and perfume yield in no respect to the first. To introduce them in this edition, we have been obliged to lop off a good many of the old chapters which were so well suited to the object of the book. We have acted thus with the less regret as we have published the omitted portions, complete, in two other volumes: the Consoling Piety of St. Francis de Sales, and the Month of Immaculate Mary, by St. Francis de Sales. These two works form a complete course of consolation for all the trials of life.

We may be permitted to give a short extract from a late number of the Catholic Bibliography, which contained an article on Consoling Thoughts. The idea of publishing the article was most remote from our mind, on account of the many marks of very great kindness towards us which it bears; but remembering that the merit of this work belongs entirely to St. Francis de Sales, we have felt impelled to give at least an extract, as a new and encouraging proof of the opportuneness of our little book.

The very title of the book, it says pleases, and should secure a large number of readers. How many souls are there today who stand in need of being encouraged and consoled? Want of confidence is the great obstacle in the work of the Christian apostleship. Discouragement is the evil of our period, because in general the Christian life, or Sanctity, appears like a sharp mountain, which only few persons can ascend; in despair of arriving at its summit the majority of men remain below on the plains. The mere word sanctity frightens. The Lives of the Saints, which ought to encourage, often discourage, by their list of heroic virtues; we gladly conclude that such a state of perfection is suited only to a very small number, and we remain out of the ways of sanctity for fear of not being able to walk in them.

Blessed then be the pious author who has received the happy inspiration of assembling together the Consoling Thoughts of St. Francis de Sales, the sweetest and most amiable of the saints, and one of the greatest masters of the spiritual life!

It is especially by his admirable union of firmness and mildness that St. Francis de Sales shines in the first rank of ascetic writers. Who else ever painted virtue under lovelier colors, or made it easier or more practicable? Whoever knew better how to enlighten and bring back souls that had withdrawn from God, or that wearied themselves in His service by an unreasonable fear?

Happy then and useful inspiration [it was], to gather from his works the thoughts most fitted to enlighten pious and timorous souls, to console them, and to dilate their hearts dried up by fear! Father Huguet has given us, in this little work, the quintessence of everything that our amiable saint wrote most sweet and consoling, especially in his letters, in which that heart so good and tender, which God had formed to comfort the afflicted, is entirely revealed. The book is of the greatest assistance to the simple faithful, and to directors and confessors charged with comforting discouraged and troubled souls.