What love can we have proportionate to the infinite goodness of our Creator, Who from all eternity has determined to create, preserve, govern, redeem, save and glorify all people in general and each person in particular? What was I when I was not? What was I, I who even now when I am something am still only a mere pitiful creature of earth? Yet from the depths of His eternity God thought thoughts of blessings on my behalf? He meditated and planned, yes, determined the hour of my birth, of my baptism, of all the inspirations He would give me, and, in sum, all the benefits He would provide and offer to me. Ah, is there any kindness like this? (T.L.G. Book 12, Ch. 12; O. V, pp. 343-344)
The feast of Saint Mary of the Angels was very dear to the heart of Francis de Sales. In his travels in Italy he used to visit the sanctuary of the Portiuncula and used to say that after the house of Loretto and the tombs of the apostles of Peter and Paul, he had not received any greater interior gifts than those he received at Saint Mary of the Angels. He used to celebrate this feast on August 2 as a true son of Saint Francis of Assisi, when he preached and received the special indulgence and urged others to foster this devotion. Father Filibert of Bonneville, many times provincial of the Capuchins and an intimate friend of our saint, said that he did not believe that the seraphic patriarch of Assisi had a more devoted or faithful son than Francis de Sales who carried out all the practices of piety prescribed be the Third Order.
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