I haven’t finished writing my post about the Sacrament of Confirmation, but here’s a little bit about the saint I chose as my confirmation name – St. Francis de Sales. I still don’t understand the tradition of choosing a confirmation name, but I did it anyway with much prayer and after considering many choices.
My first thought was to choose St. Anne, the mother of the Virgin Mary, since she’s the patron of mothers and homemakers. As a mother and a homemaker, I thought the intercessory prayers of St. Anne would be especially appropriate for me. However, I didn’t feel particularly drawn to St. Anne, except for her patronage, so I decided to keep studying.
Another mother who is a patron to mothers is St. Monica. She prayed for 30 years for the salvation of her son, who lived a tawdry life of debauchery until St. Monica’s prayers were answered. Her son, Augustine, traded his vices for virtues and became one of the most well-known and well-loved theologians of all time. Yep, St. Monica was the mother of St. Augustine, the Bishop of Hippo (in northern Africa) and a Doctor of the Church. I want to be a mother whose prayers for my children are effective in shaping them to be faithful followers of Christ, so I hope that I can emulate St. Monica’s dedication to pray for her son.
After considering St. Monica, I thought about choosing her son St. Augustine as my confirmation saint very briefly because he is a Doctor of the Church. For the same reason, I also considered St. Teresa of Avila.
I finally settled on St. Francis de Sales. The first thing I learned about St. Francis was that he was an evangelist and the Bishop of Geneva during the Reformation. He was responsible for single-handedly bringing more than 30,000 Protestants back into the Catholic Church. As an evangelical joining the Church, I sort of feel like St. Francis was helping to draw me into the faith.
As a writer, I was pleasantly surprised to discover that St. Francis is the patron of writers and journalists! Score another one for St. Francis! He earned a reputation as a writer in part because of his approach to evangelism – since people were afraid to approach him in his priestly garb, he would write pamphlets and slide them under their doors. He won them over with his kind, gentle words and actions.
Having read part of An Introduction to the Devout Life, I have to say that St. Francis’ writing is so full of love and personal conviction that it flows straight from his heart into the reader. Devout Life is a work that St. Francis compiled from his writings to Jane de Chantal, a widow and friend and pupil of St. Francis. He writes this book to this “dear woman,” frequently using the pronouns ‘she’ and ‘her,’ so almost 500 years later it feels as though he is writing to me.
Another reason I like St. Francis de Sales is that, like Augustine and Avila, he too is a Doctor of the Church. There are only about 30 Doctors of the Church out of the thousands of named saints and countless other saints who faded into anonymity. These Doctors have had a profound influence on the Church, informing our understanding of the Christian faith, deepening and developing the doctrines of the Church, and living and writing as models of how we should follow Christ. I knew I wanted to choose a Doctor as my confirmation saint; I just had to decide which one. I was thrilled to discover that St. Francis is one of these bright lights.
I am sure that I’ll discover more and more reasons why the Lord led me to St. Francis de Sales, but I will close with just one more. St. Francis’ dying word was just one – “Humility.” The nun to whom he spoke on his deathbed remains unknown, but thanks to her, St. Francis’ final message is not. His last word is made all the more powerful because humility is not only a trait that he preached, but one that he perfected in practice.
Thank you, Dear Lord, for guiding my search for my confirmation saint and for helping me to choose St. Francis de Sales. Thanks be to God!
I feel pretty good if I get a shower every other day. Getting a shower two days in a row is pretty much unheard of at my house. But when I do get a shower, I feel brand new!