August
12
St. Jane Frances de Chantal
(1562-1641)
(Co-Founder of the Order of The Visitation of Holy
Mary)
Jane
Frances was wife, mother, nun and founder of a religious community. Her
mother died when Jane was 18 months old, and her father, head of parliament
at Dijon, France, became the main influence on her education. She developed
into a woman of beauty and refinement, lively and cheerful in temperament.
At 21 she married Baron de Chantal, by whom she had six children, three of
whom died in infancy. At her castle she restored the custom of daily Mass,
and was seriously engaged in various charitable works.
Jane's husband was killed after seven years of marriage, and she sank into
deep dejection for four months at her family home. Her father-in-law
threatened to disinherit her children if she did not return to his home. He
was then 75, vain, fierce and extravagant. Jane Frances managed to remain
cheerful in spite of him and his insolent housekeeper.
When she was 32, she met St. Francis de Sales who became her spiritual
director, softening some of the severities imposed by her former director.
She wanted to become a nun but he persuaded her to defer this decision. She
took a vow to remain unmarried and to obey her director.
After three years Francis told her of his plan to found an institute of
women which would be a haven for those whose health, age or other
considerations barred them from entering the already established
communities. There would be no cloister, and they would be free to undertake
spiritual and corporal works of mercy. They were primarily intended to
exemplify the virtues of Mary at the Visitation (hence their name, the
Visitation nuns): humility and meekness.
The usual opposition to women in active ministry arose and Francis de Sales
was obliged to make it a cloistered community following the Rule of St.
Augustine. Francis wrote his famous Treatise on the Love of God for them.
The congregation (three women) began when Jane Frances was 45. She underwent
great sufferings: Francis de Sales died; her son was killed; a plague
ravaged France; her daughter-in-law and son-in-law died. She encouraged the
local authorities to make great efforts for the victims of the plague and
she put all her convent’s resources at the disposal of the sick.
During a part of her religious life, she had to undergo great trials of the
spirit—interior anguish, darkness and spiritual dryness. She died while on a
visitation of convents of the community.
Comment:
It may strike some as unusual that a saint should be subject to spiritual
dryness, darkness, interior anguish. We tend to think that such things are
the usual condition of “ordinary” sinful people. Some of our lack of
spiritual liveliness may indeed be our fault. But the life of faith is still
one that is lived in trust, and sometimes the darkness is so great that
trust is pressed to its limit.
Quote:
St. Vincent de Paul said of Jane Frances: “She was full of faith, yet all
her life had been tormented by thoughts against it. While apparently
enjoying the peace and easiness of mind of souls who have reached a high
state of virtue, she suffered such interior trials that she often told me
her mind was so filled with all sorts of temptations and abominations that
she had to strive not to look within herself...But for all that suffering
her face never lost its serenity, nor did she once relax in the fidelity God
asked of her. And so I regard her as one of the holiest souls I have ever
met on this earth” (Butler’s Lives of the Saints).