Sermons of SFS on Our Lady 

Translated by Nuns of the Visitation 

Edited by Fr. Lewis S.Fiorelli, OSFS. 

Thirteen beautiful sermons about Our Blessed Mother by St.Francis de Sales, a Master of Mystical Theology and Doctor of the Church, show how Our Lady's life was rich in virtue, especially humility, obedience and charity. St. Frances de Sales gives one beautiful insight after another. (219 pgs)

Within this book is a multitude of precious insights on the Blessed Virgin Mary as a perfect exemplar of the Christian virtues. These 13 sermons, preached by that great yet gentle Doctor of the Church, St. Francis de Sales, between 1602 and 1622, were remembered and carefully written down by the Visitation Nuns to whom he spoke. Here they are available in English for the very first time.

Steeped so thoroughly in the Holy Scriptures that they were a very part of him and enlightened with a living Catholic faith, St. Francis de Sales moves easily over both New and Old Testaments, especially the Song of Songs, showing how Our Lady's Conception, birth, infancy, childhood, Presentation, Annunciation, divine Motherhood, Visitation, Purification, death and Assumption are rich in the “perfumes" of humility, obedience, and charity - as well as in many great and special privileges given to her by God. St. Francis de Sales shows clearly that Mary, by her holy example of the virtues, is the great Mistress or teacher for every Christian's life. Revealing the spiritual depths of the smallest Scriptural details, he explains the great value and true meaning of these virtues, so central to the holiness of life.

It is obvious that St. Francis de Sales speaks from the heart-and from long experience of human nature! His insights ring true yet today. He communicates his firm conviction that the goods of eternity -virtue, grace and even God Himself- utterly surpass anything in this world. In particular, he emphasizes that the happiest and most perfect life -the one in which souls give themselves completely to God in imitation of the Virgin Mary- is the religious life.

The many beautiful Catholic insights in these sermons give a new and fresh perspective on the Christian virtues, leading the soul to a renewed resolution to follow Our Lady's example in the pursuit of that holiness which binds the Christian ever closer to Our Lord Jesus Christ.