One way to prepare for the Feast of St. Francis de Sales on Tuesday, January 24th is by getting to know his spiritual friend, St. Jane de Chantal, a little better, for a person is known by his friends.
(Credit goes to Sr. Christine of the St. Louis Visitation Monastery for the following series on St. Jane de Chantal.)
She had to keep revising her understanding of God's plan for her.
“What is your will for me, O God?
I await your plan. I want to live only for you.”
Easy for a saint to say? Consider the fact that this saint, a passionate woman with strong desires, had to keep revising her understanding of God’s plan for her. Determined to glorify God with her life, she willingly set aside one objective after another until she discovered that only in God’s time and way could her deepest desires be fulfilled.
Would she be a wife and mother? A cloistered nun? A pioneering foundress? Every time she thought she had grasped God’s plan, Jane Frances de Chantal encountered another invitation to surrender.
First Desire: Ordinary Family Life
Born in 1572, Jane grew up in a strong Catholic family at a time when France was torn by Protestant-Catholic warfare. She lost her mother when she was eighteen months old. Over the course of her life, she would also lose her stepmother, her only sister, and her own first two babies. Only one of her four other children outlived her. And yet, grievous as these untimely deaths were, it was another one that turned Jane’s life upside down.
Jane deeply loved her husband, Christopher de Rabutin-Chantal, an animated man with a tender, reflective side. After nine years of marriage, he was mortally wounded in a hunting accident. As doctors labored to save him, Jane pleaded with the Lord: “Take everything I have in this world, but leave me this precious husband.” Christopher died nine days later.
Jane was inconsolable. Friends tried to distract her with parties, but she didn’t even want to eat, let alone socialize. After four months of deep depression, she pulled herself together for her children’s sake. Privately, she vowed never to remarry.