from Formation Friday, Georgetown Visitation
| Friday, November 3, 2023 The Visitation family is blessed to have three holy women of the 20th Century – all of whom are associated with Visitation in some way – making their way into Church annals: St. Maria Elizabeth Hesselblad, Servant of God Sr. Françoise Thérèse (Léonie) Martin and St. Teresa of Calcutta. This month as we reflect on Saints – big ‘S’ painted with a gold disc behind their heads and little ‘s’ humbly being the hands and feet of Christ in ordinary ways – let us anchor our spirit in St. Francis de Sales’ counsel: “Conduct and hold your spirit fast to the glorious paths of the heavenly Jerusalem, where from every side you hear the praises of God resounding. Look at the variety of saints and find out how they arrived at Heaven. You will learn that the apostles got there especially through love, the martyrs through their constancy, the doctors through meditation, the confessors through mortification, the virgins through purity of heart, but all of them through humility.” In the Steps of Holy Women Elizabeth ~ Probably least known of the three is St. Maria Elizabeth Hesselblad, who was canonized in St. Peter’s Square on June 5, 2016. A native of Sweden, she had come to New York City as a young woman and became a nurse, where caring for the sick poor brought this Lutheran woman into contact with many Catholics. Elizabeth received inspiration and support especially from Emma Cisneros, who became her liaison with Jesuit Father Giovanni Hagen. This priest administered conditional Catholic baptism to Elizabeth in the Georgetown Visitation chapel on August 15, 1902. Elizabeth, then 32 years old, returned to Europe to re-establish the Bridgettines, dedicated to prayer for the unity of Scandinavian Christians with the Catholic Church and care of the sick poor. A further connection of this saint with the Visitation came when Emma Cisneros, her baptismal sponsor, entered Mount de Chantal, the Visitation Monastery in Wheeling, West Virginia. Léonie ~ The second woman, the older sister of St. Thérèse of Lisieux, lived a restricted but emotionally tumultuous life in France. Like her older sisters, Léonie attended the Visitation boarding school at le Mans, but there, even the loving intervention of Sr. Marie-Dositée, VHM, her mother’s sister, could not prevent Léonie’s expulsion because of disruptive behavior. Determined to be a religious, though not aspiring to follow her sisters to Carmel, Léonie tried the life of the Poor Clares which proved too rigorous for her weak health. It took three tries at the Visitation Monastery of Caen in Normandy before she made profession as Sr. Françoise Thérèse. There she lived humbly as the first disciple of her sister Thérèse’s “Little Way” until death in 1941. Teresa ~ Best known among these holy women is Teresa of Calcutta, canonized a Saint by Pope Francis on September 4, 2016. The connection of Mother Teresa with the Visitation in Mendota Heights came through Patricia Burke Kump ’45. Upon learning of Mother Teresa’s establishment of the Missionaries of Charity in India, Patty wrote her a letter of admiration, noting that her own daughter was also named Teresa. Patty then received a surprise phone call: “This is Mother Teresa and I would like to meet you. I am in Los Angeles; is it near Minneapolis?” Over the subsequent years, Sr. Teresa made four visits to the Visitation Sisters, finding quiet and refuge with them when she came to Minnesota for speaking engagements. The Mendota Heights Visitation School still has the bucket that St. Teresa used to wash her sari on one of her visits. Sources: Every Day with Saint Francis de Sales, ed. Francis J. Klauder, SDB, p. 313, Salesiana Publishers; article by Sr. Mary Paula McCarthy ’47, VHM, Mendota Heights Visitation School magazine, 2016; article by Sr. Joanne Gonter ’52, VHM, The Mount Newsletter, 2016; North American Salesian Network site on Salesian SaintsPhoto: St. Jane de Chantal Tiny Saint, commissioned in 2018 by the National Visitation Salesian Network Formation Friday is sent to Georgetown Visitation Faculty, Staff, Sisters of the Visitation, Board of Directors, Monastery Board of Directors, Alumnae Board, GVPA Executive Board, VFC Executive Committee, Salesian Friends, Crescent Conversations, ACF Candidates, and Friends of the Salesian Center. |