Don’t Go It Alone
Back in the day, the Oblates of St. Francis de Sales ran a summer camp at the head of the Chesapeake Bay along the Elk River near North East, Maryland, not far from where - centuries before - Major General [...]
November 2018
October 2018
How to Pray Constantly
In the gospels, when the Sadducees asked Jesus, “What do I have to do to obtain eternal life? Which is the greatest commandment?” Jesus said, “You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your soul, [...]
August 2018
Can’t seem to find your vocational calling?
St. Francis de Sales was passionate about the universal call to holiness, nearly 400 years before Vatican II. While he had a great love for religious orders, even co-founding the Congregation of the Visitation with St. Jane de Chantal, he [...]
St. Jane de Chantal
August 12: Feast of Saint Jane de Chantal. Saint Jane’s advice to the Visitation Sisters at Nevers: A soul abandoned completely to Divine Providence desires only God and is detached from all but him: there is no eventuality that [...]
July 2018
Wheat Among the Weeds
One of my favorite parables of Jesus is the one about the wheat and the weeds. It begins with a farmer who plants wheat. At night an enemy comes and sows weeds in the wheat. As the wheat grew up, [...]
Saints are Sinners Too
“All creatures – being a mixture, as it were, of perfection and imperfection – have been used by the Scripture to teach us about both good and evil. There is not one from which we cannot draw an analogy to [...]
June 2018
A Faithful Doubter?
In a chapter entitled “On Slander” in his Introduction to the Devout Life, Francis de Sales wrote: “Do not say that so-and-so is a drunkard even though you have seen him intoxicated, or that so-and-so is an adulterer even if [...]
Annecy! A Salesian Vacation
Anyone even remotely familiar with St. Francis de Sales, St. Jane de Chantal , the Visitation Sisters or the Oblates of St Francis de Sales will grasp the joy that floods one’s heart in seeing or hearing the name of [...]
Motherhood and the Universal Call to Holiness
I remember as a young child enjoying television shows such as The Brady Bunch and The Partridge Family. Television shows often highlighted the tenderness, compassion, and frustrations of motherhood in humorous and insightful ways. And I always saw them as [...]