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A clock outside my office chimes every 15 minutes. Each quarter hour, I am reminded of how a particular meeting is progressing, how much longer until my next appointment. An old family heirloom, this clock serves as one of the threads connecting my formation in the Salesian world with my more recent experiences in the Ignatian cosmos.

I am a member of the Oblates of St. Francis de Sales, an international congregation of priests and brothers whose purpose is to spread the charism of St. Francis de Sales. We do this in a variety of ministries but primarily in schools, missions, parishes and on military bases. We are part of a Salesian family that includes the Visitation Sisters, the Salesians of Don Bosco, the Missionaries of St. Francis de Sales and the Oblate Sisters of St. Francis de Sales.

So what is a member of Oblates of St. Francis de Sales doing in a Jesuit university? During my first year as the president of Rockhurst University, a Jesuit institution, I have met many people who ask: So, I understand that you are not a Jesuit? Others, when they discover that I live with the Kansas City Jesuit community, playfully inquire, How are you surviving with all those Jesuits?

My responses to both questions are positive ones. I politely try to reintroduce myself, explaining that I prefer to identify myself by who I am (a De Sales oblate) rather than by who I am not (a Jesuit). Most questioners then proceed to inquire about St. Francis de Sales and my congregation. To the question about how am I surviving with all those Jesuits, I respond, Very well. Why wouldnt that be the case? St. Francis de Sales had much of his early training and formation with the Jesuits; he cherished his Jesuit education in Paris; and the Jesuits who instructed him hoped that he would join their ranks. While his theology is Augustinian and Thomistic, Francis de Saless spiritual practices are rooted in his Ignatian formation. He made the Spiritual Exercises and consulted a Jesuit as his spiritual director until his death.

One might say that Francis de Sales was a man for others. A civil and church lawyer, he became the bishop of Geneva, where he encountered violent Calvinists in a post-Reformation era. Unlike Ignatius Loyola, de Sales did not have military training, though he was trained as a swordsman. Nevertheless, he engaged the hostile opposition with charity and gentleness, which earned him the appellation the gentleman saint. His motto was gentle and firm (suaviter et fortiter). De Sales engaged the Calvinists through the use of pamphlets and instructions that he wrote by hand and distributed throughout the region. His prolific and persuasive writings, found to be without error, later led to his being named one of 33 doctors of the church and the patron saint of writers.

Walking With Ignatius and Francis

Were the Society of Jesus to be dissolved, Ignatius once conjectured, it would take him 15 minutes of prayer to reconcile himself. Francis de Sales was once asked how long he went without being aware of the presence of God; his response, too, was 15 minutes. For both masters, abandonment and holy indifference capture how they lived their lives and instructed those who follow them. To put it bluntly, each will spot us 15 minutes to get refocused on letting God lead us and not vice versa.

As a university president, I struggle to keep up with the correspondence my position requires. I marvel at the amount of time that each of these two masters made for writing letters of instruction and spiritual direction, and I aspire to do something similar. Ignatius wrote close to 7,000 letters in a 16-year period as superior general of the Society of Jesus. Francis de Saless writings fill 28 volumes, 12 of which include letters to those to whom he was giving spiritual direction. He also found time to write This article appears in October 15 2007.