Patience with ourselves

I came across this quotation from St Francis de Sales which I find immensely consoling:

'Be patient with everyone, but above all with yourself. Do not be disheartened by your imperfections but always rise up with fresh courage'. Since my imperfections often tend to drive me to despair, I feel that this is an important message for me. (A mentor once said to me when I was confessing my besetting sins - "I suppose they are a lesson in humility", which had never occurred to me.) On my journey into the Catholic Church I was much helped by the magnificent Treatise on the Love of God by St Francis de Sales. This French saint was much impressed with the teaching of our St Teresa of Avila, and he was one of the conduits by which her teaching crossed the Pyrenees and into France. The Teresian Carmel established itself in France in the Seventeenth Century and flourished hugely. The roots were put down then which bore fruit two centuries later in St Therese of Lisieux and St Elizabeth of the Trinity.