St. Francis de Sales for Today

Thursday, March 21st | 7:00 pm EST | Hybrid

Francis de Sales' diligent letter-writing, homilies, and classic works of spirituality (An Introduction to the Devout Life and Treatise on the Love of God) steadily encouraged Christians to practice prayer and deepen in stillness. Importantly, de Sales proposed how such contemplation would transform the more profane/temporal tasks and interactions of the commonplace. His spiritual innovativeness meets and escorts the contemporary obsession with authenticity, unto a gentle presence with the Lord.

Fr Brett McLaughlin SJ is a U.S. East Jesuit, from western Massachusetts and Maine. He first felt a call to the priesthood in the eighth grade, and he joined the Jesuit novitiate in Syracuse after serving as a USAF Intelligence officer. As a Jesuit, he taught theology for three years at Cheverus High School in Maine, served at various retreat houses as a spiritual director, and worked as a new priest at the Church of St Ignatius in New York City. He is the McDevitt Pre-Doc Visiting Scholar at LeMoyne College, writing his dissertation on mimesis in the Kingdom of God. He assists Sundays at the Samaritan Center and the parishes of the Diocese of Syracuse. He is a member of the Colloquium on Violence & Religion, College Theology Society, and the American Academy of Religion since 2020. His writings can be found in Irish Theological Quarterly and The Way.

Suggested donation is $25 per session.