St. John the XX111 had a deep admiration of Visitation’s Founder, St. Francis de Sales.
From an interview conducted in 2014, with National Review Online’s Kathryn Jean Lopez and Randall S. Rosenberg, a theology professor at Saint Louis University, we learn:
LOPEZ: What was so special about St. Francis de Sales (1567–1622) to him?
ROSENBERG: Roncalli (Pope John’s surname)referred to the author of Introduction to the Devout Life and Treatise on the Love of God as “my St. Francis de Sales,” “my special protector and particular model.” His first exposure to Salesian spirituality was through his Uncle Zaverio, a key influence in his life, especially on his desire to integrate devotional prayer and a concern for justice. In the seminary, Roncalli had become part of the Marian Confraternity, which focused on the spirituality of St. Francis de Sales. Throughout his priestly and episcopal ministry, he appropriated and lived out key dimensions of the style and spirituality of de Sales — gentleness, humility, peacefulness, doing small things with deep love — virtues that would later mark the way he governed as pope. In his opening address at the council, he exhorted the Church to engage the world with the “medicine of mercy” and not the “weapons of severity.” I would like to suggest that this was not simply a call to be tolerant or nice, but to be, you might say, St. Francis de Sales in the modern world.
Source: https://www.nationalreview.com/2014/06/st-john-xxiii-101-interview/