(The tomb of St. Francis de Sales in the Basilica at Annecy)

What a treasure we have in the accounts that friends of the saints wrote! We have the life of St. Malachy by St. Bernard, the life of St. Louis by Joinville, the teachings of St. Francis de Sales recorded by Bishop Camus, to mention but three. In The Spirit of St. Francis de Sales, Bishop Camus of Belley writes charming anecdotes like, "One day he was looking at a painting in my house, and said..."

We all benefit from the author's friendship with an amazing person. We even have the depositions of St. Jane de Chantal at the canonization process of St. Francis de Sales. Under oath, she answered questions about the great man.

His meekness and love drew others to him, and even attract readers to his books and letters 450 years later. Not only did he give all of us sinners hope, but he even encouraged us not to be disheartened when we fall into faults and shortcomings.

Bishop Camus seems to tease gently those that are too sensitive in the same book when he writes, "Some people have so thin-skinned a conscience that every little failing vexes them, and then they are vexed at having been vexed, with a more vexing vexation than before! All this has its root in a self-love which is all the more difficult to cure by reason of its being so secret. Mischief which is easily perceived is half cured. This class of people have so good an opinion of themselves that as soon as they are conscious of any little failing, they are as troubled as a beauty who detects a blemish in her complexion."

Some of us bluster through our faults, excusing them and explaining how they're not really faults. Others are so sensitive to their faults that, like the bishop writes above, they are as upset as a young woman who finds a prominent zit on her face before a ball!

St. Francis de Sales gives us the perfect balance:

"Francis de Sales used to say that we ought to defend our ramparts with our own earthworks; in other words, that we should turn our very failings to account, by letting them confirm our hearty humility and our hope against hope...If the sight of our failings tends to deepen our humility, we turn our loss to gain, for any real progress in that most precious grace is an abundant compensation for our small imperfections."

~ Bishop Jean Pierre Camus, friend of St. Francis de Sales, The Spirit of St. Francis de Sales