St. Francis de Sales had a very deep love, and eventually, experience, of our Blessed Mother.
He was born during the octave of the Solemnity of the Assumption of Mary, on August 21.
When he was 24 he visited the Holy House of Loretto, in Italy , and later other shrines and pilgrimage sites.
In 1599, in the Feast of the Annunciation, he received Holy Communion from the Holy Father, being in Rome, and received this insight: ” God granted me the favor of a fuller understanding of the mystery of the Incarnation, making me know in a way unexplainable how the Word took on a body, by the power of the Father and the working of the Holy Spirit in Mary’s chaste womb.”
When he was consecrated Bishop on December 8, 1602, the Feast of the Immaculate Conception, he placed in Mary’s hands his ministry of the future.