We are into a brand-new year. I doubt that any of us are sorry to see 2020 in the rearview mirror! I know I’m not.
At the beginning of 2021, this prayer of St. Francis de Sales is my prayer for each of you: “I pray that God, in his goodness, will grant you a good beginning, a better continuation, and a perfect ending to this New Year that now welcomes you!”
Earlier this week on January 10th we Oblates – sisters, brothers and fathers – celebrated the feast day of our newest Salesian saint, Léonie Aviat. She is little known outside the Salesian family, but she is a saint for all of us, and in a special way for young women entering the workplace and beginning careers.
With the encouragement and support of her spiritual mentor, Blessed Louis Brisson, Léonie opened homes for young girls who were leaving their small farms and villages to work in the factories and shops of Troyes, a small industrial city in the Champagne area of France. These homes provided a safe and welcoming environment for these young working girls. They were part of the heroic efforts by Léonie and Louis to protect the faith of young workers in a new environment that was frequently indifferent and often hostile to Christian virtues, morals and values.
As she herself expressed it, Léonie’s sole desire throughout life was to “forget myself entirely” and “work for the happiness of others.”
This selfless, hard-working and holy woman put herself to one side in order to do all in her power to foster the human happiness and spiritual well-being of all those she served, especially the young women to whom she was both a substitute mother and a faithful friend!
May St. Léonie come to be better known and her example of selfless service of others more widely imitated in our world today!
Gratefully,
V. Rev. Lewis S. Fiorelli, OSFS
Provincial
Wilmington-Philadelphia Province
