SFS an Illustrated Biography

Author Fr. Antony Kolencherry MSFS

ISBN: 81-8537699-9 (2016)

From the Preface by the Author: Nobody is a saint by birth, although all are called to be saints. Saints are friends of God. We look upon them as our models who give us glimpses of what God is like. The history of the saints also demonstrates how God fashions saints out of sinners!

“St Francis de Sales: An Illustrated Biography” tries to pictorially outline the life of St. Francis de Sales, and the essence of his spirituality with brevity and accuracy. I present here just a few highlights for those who aspire to be initiated into the spirituality of St Francis de Sales. As a person who was deeply in love with God, he expressed its vibrancy in loving the human person as the crowning point of God's creation.

His voluminous literary works testify to the depth and width of his mystical insights, expounded with a bewildering variety of exotic similes and parables that dot his spiritual classics ‘Introduction to the Devout Life’ and ‘Treatise on the Love of God.’ An ardent priest, zealous missionary, a pastor-bishop, and a prolific writer, Francis excelled in passing on to posterity the perennial message that Perfection in holiness is not the privilege of a few ‘Professionals’, but accessible to “everyone, everywhere, every time.” Though he lived in the 17^th century, Francis has been deemed the harbinger of Vatican II, and his thoughts are no less relevant in the 21^st century.

The hallmark of Francis's spirituality is love, and the path to it is the practice of the virtues which he often called the "little virtues." The heart epitomizes love, as Francis succinctly puts it: "God is the God of the human heart." The mysterious love of God for each one of us is unfathomable, but can be realized by anyone who, with a resolute mind and heart, strives for it. The simple but practical insights of Francis de Sales can spur the people of the 21st century, marked by human technological ingenuity, to find their path to a mystical way of life.

Francis de Sales has inspired, and continues to inspire, people of all times and continents. This work is presented as an introduction to the personality and spirituality of Francis de Sales.

Antony Kolencherry

Solothurn, Switzerland

Feast of the Assumption, 2016