My Friend Frankie

St. Francis de Sales’ Introduction to the Devout Life isn’t exactly a thrill ride of a book. Of immense theological value? Yes. Instructive and life-changing? Yes. But easy-breezy fun? No. That’s largely because, while linguistically straightforward, the book doesn’t read like a novel. There are no narrative, characters, or personal anecdotes. It’s a book that reads like an instructional manual, requiring a good deal of mental effort if you’re going to get anything out of it. So would you believe that I met one of my greatest friends through reading the Introduction? 

And my friend just so happens to be St. Francis de Sales himself. 

Outside of my marriage and my immediate family, I don’t talk to many people on a daily basis. The few individuals I would call my friends are precious to me, but none offers a perfect or totally fulfilling friendship. One responds to texts just once a month at the best of times; one lives 7,500 miles away; one chats with me daily but doesn’t share many of my beliefs or tastes. I’m not complaining about any of them - I love them, each, dearly. But none offers me everything I would want in a friend, and of course we can never expect a human friendship to offer such. Even still, this fact doesn’t negate the loneliness that can sometimes stir up - especially when I fall in the trap of comparison on social media. Finding a friend in St. Francis de Sales, then, has been a quiet blessing. But one might ask: how can you be friends with a dead man? 

Oh, but St. Francis isn’t dead! The theological evidence for saints being alive in Heaven is well-established in the Catholic world. Protestants can strenuously ignore or attack this evidence all they’d like, without making a single bit of difference. Truth is truth, after all. The Bible they cling to as the only source of theological knowledge tells us quite plainly that God “is not the God of the dead, but of the living” (Mt. 22:32) and that “the heavenly Jerusalem” is populated by “the spirits of just men made perfect” (Heb. 12:22-23). None of these justified - in other words, holy - people could possibly be dead if they’re made perfect. 

“He who believes has eternal life,” of course, and “He who eats My Flesh and drinks My Blood abides in Me and I in him. He who eats Me will live because of Me” (John 6:47 and 6:56-57). Having been a faithful Catholic who received Communion as frequently as possible, it’s safe to say that St. Francis is indeed living because he ate of the Flesh and Blood of Christ. The Catechism tells us that the Communion of Saints is truly the Communion of the Eucharist (CCC 950), because we can’t be made perfect without the Source and Summit of our faith. Like Enoch, then, my St. Francis has been “taken up so that he should not see death” (Heb. 11:5) and lives in Heaven where he waits for me with “a harp and with golden bowls full of incense” (Rev. 5:8). 

St. Francis de Sales isn’t just alive in Heaven. He’s actually more alive there than I am on Earth. As we know, “those who die in God’s grace and friendship and are perfectly purified live forever in Christ. They are like God forever. Heaven is the ultimate end and fulfillment of the deepest human longings… supreme, definitive happiness” (CCC 1023 - 1024). Every aspect of being alive that I can possibly think of is magnified exponentially in Heaven. We might think of Heaven as having the perfect temperature, weather, sights, smells, tastes, comfort possible… but I don’t think it’s as simple as that. Since his body was left behind on Earth (for now), he’s not experiencing these wonders in the same way that we can experience the best of Earth. St. Francis’ soul is completely immersed in God and all of His perfection, and my soul can’t have that in this life. I can sit in Adoration, I can go to Mass, I can even have ecstatic visions if that’s God’s will… but I can’t yet experience what St. Francis is experiencing. He is with God outside of time, while my soul is stuck in a very temporal body separated from my Lord by sin. We know that “no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man conceived, what God has prepared for those who love Him” (1 Cor. 2:9). St. Francis has seen, heard, and conceived of these wonders and he’s living to bear witness. 

So, I’m not friends with a dead man. I’m friends with a man who has died and is now alive, supremely alive. But how do I know he’s my friend? Short of dabbling in the occult or receiving a divine apparition, I can’t hear St. Francis de Sales speaking to me. I can’t see him or hug him during this life. 

But I can feel him. 

In her diary, St. Gemma Galgani wrote about her own dear saintly friend: St. Gabriel Possenti. When tasked with describing how she knew he was with her, she could only note that “here, dear Father, I do not know how to express myself… I have felt his presence” (Galgani 54). Let me echo her words: I don’t know how to express the fact that St. Francis de Sales is in my life, other than by declaring that I have felt his presence. His life has fascinated me and his writing has inspired my own. I know that he’s prayed for me every time I’ve asked, which is daily, and that “the prayer of a righteous man has great power in its effects” (James 5:17). And I know that I’m not the first to befriend a St. Francis. 

G.K. Chesterton found a lifelong friend in St. Francis of Assisi, who was “his constant ally and companion” through the dark periods of doubt in the modern theologian’s early adulthood (Pearce 77). Even before his conversion to the Catholic faith, Chesterton somehow knew that friendship with St. Francis of Assisi would help unlock the great puzzle of life. “‘Why did he who loved where all men were blind, seek to blind himself where all men loved?’” Chesterton wrote of the great saint. This question was “‘far too large to be answered fully here, but in any life of Francis [it] ought at least to have been asked; we have a suspicion that if [it] were answered we should suddenly find that much of the enigma of this sullen time of our was answered also’” (78). If only Chesterton could piece together why St. Francis of Assisi lived the way he did, maybe Chesterton’s own life would make more sense. Like Chesterton, I often feel that if I could just understand my own Francis better then I would have a lot more figured out about the world at large. Perhaps it’s an ongoing endeavor. Still, my St. Francis de Sales has offered me what none of my earthly friends have - and it all started with a book.  

We met on the page, but my friendship with St. Francis de Sales is so much more spiritual now. First and most importantly, Francis and I share our religion. Our core fundamental beliefs are in unison, and we even have the opportunity to share a meal together once or twice a week - the Eucharist. I don’t know the name of a single person at my parish besides my husband and the parish priest, but I have a friend who’s there with me every time. He seeks out my company and he initiates communication with me, in the form of the quiet stirring of my heart. And since he’s asking, I can only trust that, incredibly, he actually wants to hear what I have to say. Francis is a powerful ally in all of my writing endeavors. Often I watch the blinking of the caret on the screen and sigh to my friend, “I don’t know what to write. Help me.” I must have done so a hundred times in writing this article alone and he must have helped a hundred and one times since the article is sitting before you, finished. He and I are proud of each other, and advice flows freely from him in the form of soft inspiration. He can even act on my behalf, if God grants him the graces. I can chat with my Francis daily, update him on everything - big or small - that happens in my life, and even if I forget about him for a time I never have to worry that he’s no longer interceding for me. And, most encouragingly as someone with severe introversion and anxiety, I truly can’t imagine feeling nervous or awkward around St. Francis de Sales when I finally get to join him in Heaven one day. Other than my husband, I don’t think there’s a single person on earth about whom I could say “I would be completely and fully at ease with you, with not a single care or concern on my mind.” And so, this man I cannot see is but the first and chief of many saints who offer me the best friendship I’ve found so far. 

I fear that too many of us are overlooking the friendship that the saints are offering us. We see these men and women - some mere boys and girls - as examples of a desired outcome or result: holiness. And that’s all well and good - we need strong role models. But for a society comprised of increasingly divided, isolated, lonely, and desperate individuals we seem to be missing the obvious lifeline thrown out to us. Real friendship, better than any you can find on Earth, with someone who is incomprehensibly alive in God’s Presence. It’s for you! By some estimates there are more than 10,000 Catholic saints, so you’ll never be short on options. No matter how unique you believe your circumstances or experiences to be, there is without a doubt a saint who shares them. There’s a patron saint for every conceivable thing that could possibly be in your heart. You need only seek. 

Now, to be clear once again, I’m not talking about seances and ouija boards here. We can never seek information from the dead. Unless God deigns to grant you an apparition, you’re not going to hear the voice of a saint with your ears. You’re not going to see them standing before you. Instead, we can unite ourselves with the holy of Heaven in prayer to God, knowing that they’re with us the same way we know God loves us - with an elevated kind of “knowing.” We can pray with our saint friends, and talk to them in prayer, and learn everything we can about them. We can dive into their writings and books that have been written about them. And if you’re looking for a book to get you started, the Introduction to the Devout Life is a fine place to start. 

Fine, but not easy. The Introduction to the Devout Life is, at first glance, rather un-thrilling. Nothing about it is intended to take you on an imaginative joy-ride. It reads like a collection of instructional pamphlets, without a narrative thread to tie it all together. There are no characters to cheer for. Few people are going to take the Introduction to the beach for a little light reading. And while the actual words themselves aren’t all that hard to comprehend on their surface, aren’t all that esoteric, what’s hard about reading the Introduction is getting the deeper value out of it. As you read, you’re drawn in by the sweet affection St. Francis has for you: “My dear,” “My child,” “Daughter,” sprinkled across the pages. You begin to realize that Francis is speaking from deep experience, that he’s put every piece of advice through the test in his own spiritual life. And once that clicks for you, you understand that you can trust him. From that trust grows a warm light illuminating the next step, and the next, and the next that you need to take the most. Each time you return to the Introduction, then, there’s no sense of not being able to measure up. There’s only an open invitation to step forward again. 

When you take your first tentative steps into the Introduction to the Devout Life, you’ll find daily spiritual exercises laid out in a neat series, like a trail of lights leading you to safety. By all means, complete the exercises. Take as many days as you need. When you come out the other side, you’ll find a treasure trove of “Counsels,” short chapters packed with advice on Christian living from “The Difference Between True and False Friendship” to “How to Strengthen the Heart Against Temptation.” This is where St. Francis shines. This is where his voice really comes alive. Each time I read his Counsels, the warmth of his spirit surrounds me and comes to lay across my shoulders to comfort me. Not to say he’s always sunshine and butterflies - there’s chastisement aplenty. “...bethink you how great His grace in calling you after you had wasted so many years” (de Sales 190), he says, for example. But even when St. Francis calls you out, you close the book feeling only encouraged. He lets you know that he’s only admonishing you because he believes wholeheartedly that you can do better - that you WILL do better, because God will give you the graces you need. Francis is sure of you because he’s sure of the Father. 

If you yearn to get closer to God, my Francis will lead the way. You need only look and ask. Start with his Introduction, but don’t stop there. Read as much of his work as you can, and let it really sink into your heart and mind. Ask him for his intercession, and ask him for a sign of his friendship. I ask him for such a sign every day, and I’m always looking for it. St. Francis de Sales is a good and faithful friend, albeit one with extremely high standards he’ll hold you to. If you ask him for his friendship, he will give it. And if you ask him for his advice, his guidance, his wing under which to nestle yourself… he’s already written it for you. The Introduction to the Devout Life is no ordinary instruction manual. It just may introduce you to your new best friend.