Universal Call to Holiness

  Introduction to Devout Life, Preface

Almost all those who have up to now written about devotion have been concerned with instructing people wholly withdrawn from the world or have at least taught a kind of devotion that leads to such a total withdrawal.

(Read further in Introduction to the Devout Life, Preface)

Devotion is suitable to every kind of life-situation and occupation

  Introduction to Devout Life, Part I, Chapter 3

Devotion is to be practised differently by the nobleman, the workman, the servant, the prince, the widow, the young girl, the wife.  Even more than this, the practice of devotion has to be adapted to the strength, life-situation and duties of each individual.

(Read further in Introduction to the Devout Life, Part I, Chapter 3)

The Universal Call to Holiness

  Corrigan Francois

(The Spirituality of St. Francis de Sales: A Way of Life.  "A Message: The Universal Call to Holiness")

If there is one message in particular that Francis de Sales preached to Christians of his day, it is this: All are called to holiness. All are called – not just monks, cloistered nuns and a few spiritual athletes who are capable of rigorous fasts, long vigils and harsh austerities.

(Read further in Corrigan Francois, The Spirituality of St. Francis de Sales: A Way of Life, Translated by Joseph D. Bowler OSFS and Lewis S. Fiorelli OSFS, Bangalore, India: SFS Publications, 1992)

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