During these days of confusion and frustration over the spread of a worldwide infectious disease, it is heartening to know that religious communities throughout the world have stepped up to the plate to offer their help and prayers.
Two Visitation sisters in France served as exemplary witnesses in curtailing the suffering during two different plagues that devastated the country as well as Europe.
Nicolas-André Monsiaul, Devotion of Msgr. de Belsunce during the Marseille Plague of 1720
St. Jane, Co-Founder, Leads by Example
St. Jane de Chantal, co-founder of the Visitation Sisters along with St. Francis de Sales, offered fervent prayers and took practical steps to alleviate suffering during the plague in France during the years 1628-31.
The historian Emile Bougaud recalled,
“Never did Mother de Chantal appear more admirable than under these circumstances. The old ardor of her nature, which for so many years she had been trying to moderate, now reasserted itself.”
The foundress sent food and medicine to her other convents, called together physicians to find a solution, recommended the exact observance of the Rules (guidelines for daily living within each community), and served the poor and sick near the convent with food and spiritual aid. She also prayed and fasted with the other sisters on bread and water and performed public penances in the refectory, begging God to end the destruction.
Bougard continued,
“It was also at this trying period that she displayed that industrious activity, that practical knowledge, that enthusiasm tempered by coolness, so valuable on such occasions. She thought of, she provided for everything. Her heart embraced in its tender solicitude all the wants of her daughters; her mind was as large as her heart.”
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Please also read more about this on Catholic 365 in an article by one of our authors, “Nine Heroic Efforts of St. Jane de Chantal to Combat One of Europe’s Worst Plagues.”
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The Mystic Anne Madeleine
Another sister, the cloistered nun and mystic Anne Madeleine Rémusat, almost a century later, in 1720-1721, received a revelation that led to the end of an outbreak of the bubonic plague in Marseilles, the largest French city on the Mediterranean coast. Prayer and penance to the Sacred Heart of Jesus on her part and the cooperation of the diocesan Bishop Henri de Belsunce, resulted in the cessation of this terrible trial.
While in adoration, Christ revealed to Sr. Anne-Madeleine that the plague would lead to the institution of the feast in honor of His Sacred Heart. Just a few days later, He made known to her the conditions. The message was immediately transmitted to Bishop de Belsunce who published an order establishing the Feast of the Sacred Heart in his diocese. On Nov. 1, for the first time in the world, he solemnly consecrated the city and the Diocese to the Sacred Heart of Jesus.
In what historians call the appeasement, sufferers began to recover while the mortality fell from about 1,000 per day to about 20 people, to eventually two per day.
Pray to the Sacred Heart of Jesus during this current worldwide health crisis! Consecrate yourself and your family to Him. May our clergy and hierarchy do likewise, and for all of us.