The book that accompanies the upcoming exhibition at the Visitation Museum is the result of long work among the writings of the numerous biographies and books devoted either to St. Francis de Sales, or St. Jane Frances de Chantal.
The authors of this book have wished to innovate on two points: First- to treat of the lives of these two characters in one book, highlighting their destinies that gave birth to the Order of the Visitation. On the other hand they want to show before they were canonised their human experience, immersed in their time, facing the same joys or the same difficulties as everyone.
They were a man and a woman of their time, of their company and of their world, but with a few nuances they had extraordinary lives that would been simple and ordinary.
The aim is to introduce to the reader to the lives of these two personalities through significant events and historical anecdotes and also from objects which have belonged to them.
These objects, these treasures attest and show their existence from the ease of the social environment in which they were born and from the detachment from material things they chose. Thus, the memorials of their daily lives are unveiled, even if they are rare.
A glimpse of their spiritual life is given to us through their books, their daily prayers. Finally, the Church having granted them the honors of the altar, there was a rich iconography that developed over centuries to illustrate the stages of their lives. Objects treasured by their families sometimes offered and passed from hand in hand, are displayed.
If their course has been neither easy nor quiet,their lives were nevertheless fully accomplished because they were perfectly engaged and, therefore,full of joy, joy that saints invite us to enter.