The Don Newsletter

There is a formula for thriving instead of just surviving. There is a formula for making a difference in people’s lives and having a ministry that becomes effective. There is a formula for being happy despite facing many obstacles in this world. What is it? What’s the secret sauce? It’s this – have a mission that obsesses you and go for it! The formula for a happy life is to identify your God-given mission and then to go about fulfilling it with every ounce of energy you can muster.

Francis de Sales (1567-1622) was a Catholic bishop at the time of the Protestant Reformation. He lived in a region that disregarded Catholicism and was hostile to clergy. He lived at a time when the norm for clerics and nobles was to distance themselves from common people. He lived at a time of great scepticism about religion.

So... what did he do? He identified his mission – save souls. “I will win back souls for Christ,” he determined. The method would be love. He knew a great love would be required, so he opened his heart fully to the burning love of God through Jesus. Then he got busy working and praying!

Work: You really have to admire the untiring activity of Francis de Sales. He was on the move via horseback, riding far and wide to visit even the remotest corner of the region. The area was the Chablais and for four years the young missionary spent every day forming friendships and breaking down hostilities. The area he worked in was ravaged by religious wars. There were no Catholic places of worship. Churches were ransacked. In most first encounters with people, Francis was persecuted as a papist, called a magician, nicknamed a “goat” who brings evil, and in danger of being killed at any given moment.

The situation would discourage just about anyone. De Sales did not run away from this difficult mission. He worked. He worked long and hard! Little by little, his witness and zeal brought about a change of attitude. “The Church has its problems – but this guy’s alright!” some said. Others: “If they had more priests like him, I’d even think about re-joining!” People thought: “Papist though he be… he seems to be a saint.” The witness of his life sowed the leaven of the search for truth in consciences.

Unbelievably results came. At the beginning of the mission there were barely 100 Catholics in the whole region. By the end of 1598 there were no more than 100 Protestants in the whole territory.

The formula – unwavering devotion to the mission with hard work and constant prayer! Hard work is a martyrdom. It takes constant effort. At the same time, Saint Francis was a big pray-er. He had to be or he would have burned out. The constant and patient exercise of love is fueled by union with God. Doing ‘everything through love and nothing through constraint’ (Salesian’s Strenna/theme for 2022) is backed up with prayer. That’s why Francis, the humble bishop of Geneva, became the master and inspirer of the synthesis of action and contemplation. Work and Prayer were his modus operandi.

I hope all of us are motivated on our mission to become saints. I hope that all of us will get busy – working and praying – to allow that to happen.