Coming from the Protestant tradition, as I do, drawing inspiration from the life and spiritual legacy of Francis de Sales, a Catholic saint as well as a leading light in the Counter-Reformation, required me getting over my initial instinctive doctrinal cautions. Yes, Francis prayed the rosary, yes he petitioned Mary, and yes his life’s work, in particular as Bishop of Geneva, was primarily about winning Protestants back to the “Mother Church” – a task which he undertook with zeal and great success. However, it becomes quickly evident, on reading into his life’s work and his devotional writings, that Francis de Sales acknowledged Jesus Christ as His Saviour, Lord and Friend, loved and served Him wholeheartedly, and laboured with a godly humanity and an exemplary Christian love. He also demonstrated a clear awareness of the need of the Catholic Church to reform much that had fired the Protestant Reformers to rebel in the first