The Saintly bishop, founder, and Doctor of the Church, St. Francis de Sales, is known throughout the Catholic world for his great gentleness, learning, and understanding of the human soul.  During his lifetime, he converted and guided innumerable souls and reconverted thousands from Calvinism back to the Catholic faith.  His great gifts are likewise evident in his sermons, as he guides his listeners in the ways of prayer.

These priceless sermons given by St. Francis de Sales in 1615 were diligently copied down by two nuns, both of whom had been blessed with excellent memories.  They gathered up the saint’s words like precious manna.  However, the sermons were not translated into English until centuries later, in our own decade, and in this book they are available to us for the very first time.

Here St. Francis de Sales shows how prayer is the key to all holiness.  In simple words and colourful imagery he explains the profoundest secrets of sanctity. He often quotes the words of Sacred Scripture (especially the Song of Songs), pointing out their hidden meaning as applied to the value and practice of prayer.  At times he employs such graphic examples as birds, archery, honey, grasshoppers and wine; as the reader encounters these picturesque images, he will grasp some of the sublimest truths of doctrine and holiness ever expressed.  Some of the saintly bishop’s insights are only one sentence long – yet one such sentence can provide a person with the answer to a question that may have puzzled him for years.

With the declaration in 1887 that he is a Doctor of the Church, St. Francis de Sales has been presented to all the faithful by Holy Mother Church as a trustworthy teacher of Catholic Doctrine and the ways of the spiritual life – and therefore as a certain guide on the pathway to Heaven.