Salesian gentleness is not about being indulgently yielding, and it is certainly not wedded to weakness of character. For St Francis de Sales, gentleness as he lived, felt and proposed it, and which was a path of lifelong daily conversion for him, had a deeply Christian source. It starts with Jesus who said of himself, “I am meek and humble of heart.”
To be honest, gentleness is not a single entity: it is one of a pair where the two terms are not even equivalent: kindness and humility. Francis de Sales would say that these two acts of the believer are the basis of holiness, and he also says that kindness and humility are somewhat rare virtues.
He would say that we need to be gentle of heart with our neighbour and humble of heart with our God. Salesian gentleness is the combination of these.
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