How Our Lady rescued St. Francis de Sales from despair

The Church celebrates St. Francis de Sales on January 24. What you may not know is that in his early youth, the so-called Doctor of Divine Love was overwhelmed to the point of despair by a sense of his own unworthiness and fear of damnation. One of the most famous Parisian advocations of the Virgin saved him from this temptation.

Francis de Sales was born in Thorens on August 21, 1567, in the French-speaking Savoie region straddling the Alps, whose rulers also ruled Italian Piedmont. At a very young age, while his father was drawing up ambitious plans for his future, he dreamed of giving himself to God.

When he reached the age of 11, Francis was tonsured. Although this ceremony attached him to the clergy, it in no way obliged him to pursue the priesthood. It only gave him a religious title and the highly advantageous possibility of receiving ecclesiastical benefits. This was not Francis' idea, however. From then on, he felt part of the Church and thought only of serving God.

Shortly afterwards, his parents sent him to continue his studies in Paris, at the Collège de Clermont, now the Lycée Louis-le-Grand, where the Jesuits trained the French Catholic elite. They quickly realized that the student was brilliant and of a virtue beyond his years. This earned him the nickname “l'Ange” (the Angel) from his classmates. But it was precisely this virtue and intelligence that were to be put to the test at the dawn of his 18th year, in a spiritual crisis of rare intensity.

The Church, especially in France, was emerging from the terrible turmoil of the Reformation and the Wars of Religion. The renewal called for by the Council of Trent, which came to a close in 1563, was slowly making its way through Catholicism. But despite all this, a point of theology — born of a misinterpretation of St. Augustine, and which had already nourished Protestant thought, just as it would nourish Jansenist excesses — still haunted people's minds. It was the question of grace and predestination.

Are some people, despite their best efforts and edifying lives, destined to be damned all the same, while others, who will have “sinned greatly,” as Luther put it, will be saved? Does God predestine some of his creatures to hell? If such an assertion seems absurd and scandalous to us, it was seemingly supported by the immense authority of St. Augustine. Thus, it was at the heart of scholarly debates, leading to contradictory responses and endless disputes. In fact, Rome would eventually forbid discussion of it.

Francis de Sales, a brilliant student, had followed these debates. He knew both sides of the argument, defended by people of similar authority. In the year 1586, he no longer knew where he stood, nor what he should think, nor what he should believe …

An abominable doubt — of which we are no longer capable, so much of the gravity of the subject escapes us today — was tormenting him. What if it were true that some people, whatever they do, are doomed to eternal perdition? Could it be that, by a misfortune without remedy, he was one of them? What was to be done? What's the point in fighting? What's the point of believing?

Francis couldn't sleep and couldn't eat. He wasted away, so obsessed and despairing was he because of this possibility. At first, as a good intellectual, he looked for answers in books, but they only confused him further. And his despair only grew.

The worst ideas began to obsess him when, almost by chance, he pushed open the door of a church — later demolished during the Reign of Terror — close to his home, Saint-Étienne-des-Grès. Tradition has it that it was founded by St. Denis, the first bishop of Paris. This may be inaccurate, but — and this was what made it so famous — an ancient Black Madonna, Our Lady of Good Deliverance, was venerated there, reputed to ensure pregnant women a happy birth, their survival and that of their child.

In truth, the image was almost disturbing in its ugliness. However, Parisian women weren’t hung up on this detail. They flocked to her feet, trusting in her miraculous intercession. Although the young Francis de Sales was not interested in these purported miraculous powers, this did not prevent him from coming often to pray before Our Lady of Good Deliverance. In fact, it was before her that, a few months earlier, he had taken a definitive vow of chastity and virginity.

But that was before the horrible crisis that had left him so distraught. Why did he drag himself, like a dying man — which he was, spiritually speaking — to the altar? Because deep inside him, a voice whispered to him that Mary was the only one, far from all the dry discourses of the intellectuals, capable of enlightening him and pulling him out of his spiritual torments.

Collapsed before her, in tears, the young man murmured an admirable prayer, the cry of a soul overwhelmed with love for Christ, trying in a last effort to tear himself away from doubt:

Instantly, the anguish that gripped his soul vanished. Our Lady of Good Deliverance had delivered Francis de Sales from his obsession. From then on, he could devote himself to her service and that of her Son, until his last breath.