On August 12th we celebrate the Feast of the Visitation Order’s Foundress, St. Jane de Chantal
The teaching of this mystic of the seventeenth century always resonates with such force in our time: it is through small things and the gift of self that one accomplishes great works!
Saint Jane de Chantal had a thousand lives! Wife and mother of a family, invested with the poor and the sick, founder of the Order … That’s why she was named patron and protector of the forgotten people, the convicts of justice, the mothers of mothers and the widows …
She who, all her life, was guided by the “Salesian” spirit, as much as she inspired it, displayed incredible energy in all her works, always remaining totally abandoned to the divine will, despite the doubts that she may have been assaulted with sometimes, and despite the trials of life.
“Let us walk by these low valleys with humble and small virtues. We will see roses between the thorns, the lilies of purity and the violets of mortification … Let’s visit the sick, serve the poor, advise the afflicted, all without eagerness, with true freedom “, writes the one whose message always resonates with as much force more than three centuries later.
A prayer:
“O most holy Will of my God, who have surrounded me with your Mercies, I give you infinite graces: I adore you from the depths of my soul; and, with all my strength and affection, I unite now and forever my will to yours, especially in all that I will do, and in all that You please to send me this day, consecrating again to your sovereign Glory my soul, my spirit, my body, and all my actions and thoughts, words, works, and all my being, begging you with all the humility of my heart to fulfill in me your eternal designs, without me to allow that I give no impediment. Your eyes penetrating the most intimate folds of my heart, see that all my desire is to accomplish this holy Will; but they also see my weakness and helplessness; therefore, prostrate at the feet of your infinite Mercy, I conjure you, my Savior, to grant me the grace to perform it perfectly, so that, like a fire of your heavenly Love, I am a pleasant sacrifice, which endlessly You praises and blesses You with the glorious Virgin and all the saints. So be it. ”