St. Jane de Chantal’s Feast is celebrated on August 12th and this Foundress of the Visitation Order of Holy Mary demonstrates characteristics that can model responses for us in our own times.
We are living through the Covid-19 pandemic; she lived courageously through the Plague of 1628-1631.
St Jane suffered through the wars of religion in her day as we intercede for justice during our own civil unrest.
St. Jane was challenged by city authorities and lack of resources as she established new monasteries in difficult conditions as we face the situations of fragility of communities today.
Our Holy Mother tells us: When will we savor the tenderness of the Divine Will in all the events of our life, seeing in them only His good pleasure and His unchanging, mysterious love which is always concerned with our good, as much in prosperity as in adversity? But, imperfect as we are, we somehow transform into poison the very medicine the Great Physician prescribes for our healing. Let us surrender ourselves lovingly to the will of our heavenly Father and cooperate with His plan to unite us intimately to Himself through suffering. LSD 216
As Bishop Bougaud states in his biography of St Jane, The spirit of poverty, courage, and cheerfulness in the midst of want were not the only virtues they(Sisters of Paris Visitation) admired in Mother de Chantal. Among a thousand others, her zeal for the observance of the Rule, the rarest humility, and the purest love of God shone pre-eminent.
May St Jane actively engage with us from her place in glory today and intercede for our reception of God’s grace to inculcate these holy dispositions that were hers!