A Year with the Saints - 29 May

A most important means of acquiring interior mildness is to accustom ourselves to perform all our actions and to speak all our words, whether important or not, quietly and gently. Multiply these acts as much as you can in the time of tranquillity, and so you will accustom your heart to gentleness. - Saint Francis de Sales

The Saint himself practiced this advice well, for he never seemed hurried on any occasion. When a person once asked him about this, he answered: "You ask me how I manage not to be hurried and troubled when everyone else is. How shall I answer you? I did not come into the world to bring perplexities; are there not enough in it already?"

- text taken from A Year with the Saints, composed by an unknown Italian, translated by a member of the Order of Mercy; it has the Imprimatur of Archbishop Michael Augustine Corrigan, Archdiocese of New York, New York, 21 January 1891