How did the St. Jane de Chantal Gallery Community at the Georgetown Visitation Monastery get its start?

With a dream, a need, a consensus, courage ~ all we hope, within the strong movement of the Holy Spirit and the Holy Will of God!

To spiritually prepare for the inauguration of the community, several days were spent in reflection, sharing and quiet.

The first day, we focused on gratitude.  Our Holy Mother, St. Jane de Chantal, for whom the Gallery Community is named, had much to say about the interior disposition of gratitude.

The sentiments of St. Jane towards those who founded monasteries evidenced her great-heartedness. Our Holy Mother said,  “ My God, how full of gratitude  and acknowledgment ought Superiors and Monasteries  who have Foundresses be toward them, trying to give satisfaction  to their minds, and every reason to be pleased, treating them with openness, cordiality,  and confidence, so that they may never feel disgust,  or repent of the charity they have done.  Much respect must be shown them, according to their rank and age.”

And as St Jane’s thoughts were never very far from those of St Francis de Sales, she goes on to remind us, “ And in this gratitude we ought to be conspicuous, as true Daughters of our Blessed Father, who of all men in the world, was the fullest of gratitude and affability towards all sorts of persons. He obliged everybody, and made use of nobody more than was necessary; and he did this in order to help and relieve his neighbor.”

St Jane summarized these thoughts. “ In short, we must recompense and acknowledge the benefits we have received, at least by gratitude and praise given cordially , but without exaggeration.”

 The Salesian, Visitandine balance is very present in these thoughts.