Monday, January 25, 2010

St. Francis de Sales and the SuperBowl.

Yesterday was the feast day of St. Francis de Sales and he is one of my favorite Saints; the Saints in Heaven that is!! One of the reasons I have a devotion to Francis de Sales is the order that bears his name; Salesians. I was taught by the Salesians during High School when I attended Archbishop Shaw High in Marrero, La. I have stayed in touch with Salesian spirituality since then. The other major reason is that St. Francis de Sales was the spiritual advisor to another Saint, St. Jane de Chantal, for whom my home parish is named. In fact, together, they started an order of nuns called the Visitation sisters.

Francis was a powerful Christian witness exhorting the faithful and restoring Catholicism as the faith of the people of France. He became the Bishop of Geneva and continued to help spread the faith by being a faithful pastor and through many spiritual writings. Among his most important works was the Devout Life, regarded today as a spiritual classic.

St. Francis de Sales was very close to St. Jane and by his example she was able to endure being a widow with several children, a difficult life lived with her in-laws and the amazing conversion to be not only a nun, but the founder of a religious order.

Now the connection to the New Orleans Saints. It's early in the morning so this is a cursory check. To my knowledge, every game day that was listed as an official feastday of a Catholic Saint resulted in a victory. I should have realized that yesterday was not only a big feastday, but the feastday of a French Catholic Saint, in the tradition of all those many French Catholic Saints that are patrons of the New Orleans area.

So St. Francis de Sales, thanks and may we humbly still beg your prayerful intercession.

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