Catholic Heroes . . . St. Jane Frances De Chantal
By DEB PIROCH
“Should you fall even fifty times a day, never on any account should that surprise or worry you. Instead, ever so gently set your heart back in the right direction and practice the opposite virtue, all the time speaking words of love and trust to our Lord after you have committed a thousand faults, as much as if you’d committed only one. Once we’ve humbled ourselves for the faults God allows us to become aware of in ourselves, we must forget them and go forward” — St. Jane.
- + + Growing up, I was impressed by religious books which stressed the importance of good company. By surrounding oneself with virtuous friends, one is less likely to sin and more likely to grow in the faith. Indeed, the Gospel of Matthew contains the much-repeated verse, “By their fruits ye shall know them” (7:16). If you are ever in doubt whether someone is with God or against Him, look at the fruit they issue forth. Also, are they surrounded by people who are growing in virtue, or not?
St. Jane de Chantal (1572-1641) is a prime example of one we would want in our circle. There were some difficult folks in her family, but these she bore with patiently or influenced for the better. There were also other religious in her family: Her uncle was the abbot of a monastery, her brother an archbishop. Later, her closest friend was a saint and her daughter would marry the saint’s brother.
By the age of twenty she had been asked twice already for her hand in marriage and, in the end, wed a baron. The two were certainly a love match, together having six children, four of whom survived to adulthood. After eight years her husband was accidentally shot while hunting: He lived long enough to forgive the man who had killed him. Eventually Jane would, as well. But she mourned her husband for months, finding the suffering of being without him at first very hard to bear.
But first, back to the beginning. She was born 1572 in Dijon, France, before the town was famous for mustard (that would only come about in the mid-1800s). Her father was the head of Parliament and as mentioned, she would go on to marry a baron. But things were not as one would have thought; she married also into an estate with a lot of debt, which with time and care she was able to bring into order.
She had both sense and humor. Once reproached at court while her husband was away for dressing soberly as opposed to the rich fashion of the time, she answered, “The eyes I must please are a hundred miles away from here.”
Her world suddenly changed when her beloved husband died forgiving his attacker. Jane was in great sorrow for many months. Gradually over time she was able to forgive the man, too, but it took time. She began by greeting him as she passed him on the street. Then she gradually increased her exposure and tolerance for the man bit by bit. Eventually she was able to eat with him together in her house, and even becoming godmother to his child.
After becoming a widow, she was forced to move near her demanding father-in-law, and for seven years put up with both him and his insulting housekeeper, to make sure the future of her children was secure. She also tried to keep an eye on her own father, too. One imagines that she may have been involved somewhat in care — as all mothers are — for all their loved ones. This can be an enormous task. She would find the answer to the next stage of her life on a visit to her father, one Lent.
Jane had a vision, when praying that God would send her a guide. In it, she saw her future spiritual adviser. When she later went to visit her father, she heard St. Francis de Sales preach. In him she recognized the spiritual adviser God had meant for her in her vision. The two future saints became fast friends. She had wanted to become a nun but instead, he encouraged her to help him form what became the Visitation Nuns. This began as a lay group of women meant to be public, as opposed to cloistered, but still doing many works of mercy. He also restricted her asceticism, requiring her for instance to have 7-8 hours of sleep a night. He freed her from the austerity of a previous director who was too strict, wanting her to “do everything through love and nothing through constraint.”
These women had duties that were very different from prayer only, and often were older or some might even not be in the best health. The oldest woman they accepted then was in her eighties! Once when someone reproved St. Jane for accepting those who were older or sickly, she said, “I am on their side!” By this, one assumes she was jokingly saying she was not all that young or in her prime anymore, either.
Jane did not neglect her children, though she did leave her youngest, her son, at 15 to be cared for by her father and her brother, the archbishop. At this age, he would have been thought much older than today, when people marry later and live longer. But she felt she needed also to begin her spiritual journey. In the end, she still saw all married and one daughter even married the brother of St. Francis. She also prayed hard for them. She prayed for instance for her son, who loved to duel, that he might not die this way (he died on the battlefield instead) and for a daughter to be less worldly. In what must have also caused her great heartache, she outlived three of her four children. Surely, God must have a special ear for the prayers of parents for their children.
Besides losing family, Jane also suffered spiritual dryness for long periods of her life. As Catholics, we know so well that many saints have battled aridity and persisted; an excellent more modern example is portrayed in Mother Teresa’s biography, Come Be My Light. If you do not “feel” your faith, or any comfort that God is near, know this is part of our growing closer to Him in the quietness of our hearts. There comes a time when we must walk without always having the pat on the head from our mother or father, yes? Well, God allowed some of his saints to mature this way, as He saw fit for the benefit of their souls.
Jane used to say we should “throw ourselves into God as a little drop of water into the sea, and lose ourselves indeed in the Ocean of the divine goodness.” Then feel free, truly free, to be happy.
The Sisters of the Visitation were begun on Trinity Sunday, 1610. By the time Jane died 31 years later, there were already 13 chapters. In the end, St. Francis was forced to make the group a religious and not lay group after all, because of the climate of the times. By the next century when Jane was canonized, there were already over 150 chapters. She died while visiting another of her convents at the age of 69, and was buried next to St. Francis de Sales.
St. Vincent de Paul wrote that she was “one of the holiest souls I have ever met on this Earth.” From the website of St. Jane Frances de Chantal Catholic Church in Riviera, Md., we borrow this lovely prayer: “St. Jane, you forgave the man who killed your husband. Help me to forgive (fill in name) who has caused me harm, knowing how hard it is to forgive. Help me take the steps to welcome this person back into my [heart]/life. Amen.”