by Sister Marie-Pierre
Dying to all other love to live to that of Jesus
This title will be our key to reading the spiritual history of the Visitation in 1616. A decisive year, not only for the legal transformation of the Institute but also for the spiritual journey of our holy Mother and her daughters. A fruitful year also with the publication of the Treatise on the Love of God and the foundation of Moulins.
The spiritual journey of our holy Mother
At the beginning, a heart totally dedicated to divine love
The note is given, from January 1st, in the wishes that our holy Founder addresses to our holy Mother (st Fr. de S. XVII p.127-UEA p.366): “Happy and very holy year (…), dedicating with this same heart of my very dear Mother, mine as well as hers to the glory of divine Goodness, and consecrating to her all the moments of this year to make an entire circumcision of this heart, and to apply it to receiving purely and perfectly sacred love.”
But the unique heart of our holy Founders is inseparable from that of their daughters, the letter continues in ardent prayer for them: “Happy and very holy year, all perfumed with the name of Jesus, all soaked with his blood. (…) May this sacred name fill with its pleasant sound the whole congregation of our sisters, and the drops of the blood of the little Savior be converted into a river of holiness that rejoices and makes fertile all the hearts of this dear troop”.
In this octave of Christmas, at the start of the journey that opens with this year 1616, a heart is needed that is entirely dedicated to divine love, a heart in which the Child Jesus reigns peacefully, as he is represented on the cover page of the Treatise on the Love of God.
Looking towards the horizon: abandoning oneself in the Heart of the dying Savior to live again in his love
On Holy Thursday, the letter of our holy Founder to our holy Mother (UEA p.598-St Fr.de S. XXVI p.272) marks an important step. He writes her “these lines, as a summary of the resolutions most suitable for your advancement in the pure love of Our crucified Lord”. Simplicity characterizes this love: “Not only in prayer, but also in the conduct of your life, walk invariably in a spirit of simplicity, abandoning your soul, your actions and your successes to the good pleasure of God, by a love of perfect and most absolute confidence, abandoning yourself to the eternal love that divine Providence has for you. The children whom Our Lord instills in us should be the model of our perfection, ordinarily have no care in the presence of their father and mother; they remain attached to them, without looking at their consolations, (…) love occupying them enough. Whoever is very attentive to lovingly pleasing the heavenly Lover has neither the heart nor the leisure to turn back on himself (…). This continual abandonment in the hands of God excellently understands all the perfection of the other exercises in its perfect simplicity and purity.”
The examination of conscience purifies itself of “all curious solicitude,” its only goal being to please the Spouse more. In this, there is no spiritual nonchalance, on the contrary, the impulse of the soul is strengthened: “Throw your heart and your affections into the paternal bosom of God, and he will carry you where his love wants you”. This love configures us to Jesus: “Let us imitate the divine Savior who, as the most perfect Psalmist, sings the sovereign traits of his love on the cross, he concludes them all: ̏ My Father, into your hands I commend my spirit ̋. After we have said this, what remains, if not to expire from the death of love, no longer living to ourselves, but Jesus Christ living in us?”
It is at this summit that the Salesian direction aims, it is the “Live Jesus” of the daughters of the Visitation and first of all of their Foundress. It is a mystical Easter that introduces spiritual freedom: “Then will cease the worries coming from self-love (…) which secretly makes us hasten to the quest for self-satisfaction. Embarked in the exercises of our vocation, under the wind of this simple loving confidence, without noticing our progress we will make it greatly. (…) Then all events are received gently: for, who is in the hands of God and rests in his bosom, who has abandoned himself to his love and has surrendered himself to his good pleasure, what can shake him? In all occurrences, without philosophizing on the causes of events, he pronounces this holy acquiescence of the Savior: ̏ Yes, my Father, for thus it has been accepted before you ̋. » This heart given over to divine love receives not only events but also the neighbor with an invariable sweetness: “Then we will be all soaked in sweetness towards the sisters and the other neighbors, because we will see these souls in the breast of the Savior. Who looks at the neighbor from there, he runs the risk of loving him neither purely, nor constantly, nor equally; but there, who would not love him? who does not support him would? (…) Now he is there, this dear neighbor, in the bosom of the Savior; he is there as very beloved and so lovable, that the Lover dies of love for him”.
Then our holy Founder considers spiritual friendship. When this takes its source in the Heart of Jesus, it no longer needs to be reassured by concrete signs, it is enough for it to be from God: “When will this natural love of blood, of sympathies, be purified and reduced to the perfect obedience of the pure love of the good pleasure of God? When will this love of ourselves no longer desire presences, external testimonies, but [but] remain fully satisfied by the immutable assurance that God gives it of its perpetuity? What can presence add to a love that God has made and maintains? (…) On these foundations, let us abandon ourselves in the depths of the pierced Heart of Our Lord. Be done of us and in us according to the good royal pleasure of this sovereign Heart, to which, by which and for which we want to live and die as it pleases him, without reserve. Long live Jesus who died for our heart! May our heart die forever to live eternally from the death of his love. “This is a prelude to the great stripping of Pentecost, but in what a sublime perspective: that of abandoning oneself to the depths of the Heart of Jesus to live from his love.
Summit: total stripping and nakedness of everything for God
Around May 12, our holy Founder is ill: what seemed at first to be a cold quickly became dangerous due to the swelling and inflammation of his mouth. Armed with his advice, our holy Mother nevertheless makes a little retreat as planned, because she had not had the possibility since her return to Annecy. On the 18th, she reports to her blessed Father and asks (UEA p.370-Correspondence I Letter n°73): “Could I remain a few more days in my dear solitude, continuing this last affection there?” Here is the inspiration she shares with him: “Our Lord gave me the sweet thought of leaving myself to Him”. Our holy Founder approves (UEA p.371-Correspondence I p.163): “I am willing for you to continue the exercise of stripping yourself, leaving yourself to Our Lord and to me”. He invites him to contribute to it with words: “O Lord, I except nothing, tear me away from myself”. It is even necessary to renounce the nurse while keeping her (the spiritual father that he himself is). He adds “These renunciations are admirable: of one’s own esteem, one’s will, one’s complacency in natural love, and in short one’s whole self, which one must bury in an eternal abandonment, so as to see it and know it no more as we have seen and known it, but only when God orders us and according to what he orders us. God will me forever to possess. I am his here and there, where I am in you, because you are indivisible to me, except in the exercise of the renunciation of all ourselves for God”.
It is therefore for our holy Mother not to renounce the unity that God has made of their souls, but to all search for oneself in this spiritual support that He Himself had given, thereby opening up for her a path of interior freedom. It is on this Wednesday, May 18, 1616, that our holy Mother gives herself entirely to the stripping that God asks of her. She then writes: “I have a firm intention to remain in my nudity, by means of the grace of God. I feel my spirit completely free, and with I know not what infinite and profound consolation to see itself thus in the hands of God” (UEA p.372-Correspondence I Letter n°74).
Our holy Founder, whose health is improving, answers her (UEA p.373-Correspondence I p.165): “Naked I came out of my mother’s womb, and naked I will return there. (…) It is the glory of the Shulamite to be able to be alone with her only King, to say to him: My Beloved is mine, and I am his. We must therefore remain forever completely naked, my dear Mother, as to affection, although in fact we clothe ourselves; for we must have our affection so simply and absolutely united with God, that nothing attaches itself to us”.
Reassured by his convalescence, our holy Mother knows that this solitude will be, she tells her (UEA p.374-Correspondence I Letter n°75): “well employed in the service of your dear spirit. I could not say ours, because it seems to me that I no longer have any part in it, so much do I find myself stripped of all that was most precious to me. My Father, whom the razor has penetrated before! (…) It came to my memory today that one day you commanded me to strip myself. How easy it is to leave what is around us, but to leave one’s flesh and penetrate into the intimacy of the marrow, which is, it seems to me, what we have done, is a difficult thing, impossible, except by the grace of God.” Perhaps she is referring to the dialogue of Pentecost 1605 (St. J. de Ch. I p.71): “My Father, will you not tear me away from the world and from myself?” “Yes, one day you will leave all things, you will come to me, and I will place you in a total stripping and nudity of everything for God.” Our holy Mother has given her absolute consent to love and will be able to say: “I know a soul, which love has separated from things that were more sensitive to it than if tyrants had separated its body from its soul by the edge of their swords. » (St. J. de Ch. I p.357)
On May 21, our blessed Father advised her to remain in solitude until she was clothed with strength from on high, after the Mass of Pentecost. He invited her to have no other support than Jesus alone (UEA p.376-Correspondence I p.168): “Our Lord loves you, he wants you all his own. Have no other arms to carry you than his, nor any other breast to rest on than his and his providence; rest your mind only in him alone; keep your will so simply united to his in all that he will please to do with you, in you, by you and for you, and in all things outside of you, let nothing be between the two”. In the arms of Jesus like a little one whom he had shown her as a model of simplicity in his letter of Holy Thursday. Then he continues with these words that penetrated the depths of his heart: “Do not think any more about the friendship or the unity that God has made between us, nor about your children, nor about your body, nor about your soul, in short about anything whatsoever; for you have given everything to God. Put on Our crucified Lord, love Him in His sufferings. What you used to do, do it no longer because it is your inclination, but purely because it is the will of God. Francis followed the same invitation of grace: “I feel insensibly in the depths of my heart a new confidence to better serve God in holiness and justice all the days of my life; and I also find myself naked, thanks to Him who died naked to make us undertake to live naked.”
What has become of their spiritual friendship with this stripping? Enriched by the character of renunciation, it remains, even more holy. Thus, on May 21, our holy Mother concludes her letter with these words: “It seems to me that I see the two portions of our spirit being only one, uniquely abandoned and given over to God” (UEA p.375-Correspondence I Letter n°75).
More and more the opportunities to write and see each other will become rarer. As Sister Marie-Patricia writes (Correspondence I p.127): “The sacrifice of 1616 will be present in their relations, until their last meeting”. This solitude that our holy Mother will feel painfully will prepare her to bear alone the concern of all the monasteries.
On a path with Jesus alone for support
After this retreat, she writes in a notebook her questions to our blessed Father who answers as she goes along. On the subject of the renewal of his vows and his total abandonment to God, he writes (UEA p.604-St Fr. de S. XXVI p.279): “It will be good that every year you make the proposed renewal, and the perfect abandonment of yourself into the hands of God. For this, you will remove the superfluous words that concern the love of creatures, in particular parents and especially the Father; and, as long as possible, long thoughts of these things. Before dinner, before supper and in the evening, examine whether, according to your actions of the previous time, you can sincerely say: I live, not I, but Jesus Christ lives in me.” As a sure guide, he shows her the ridge path that now opens before her (UEA p.602-St Fr. de S. XXVI p.278): “On this day of Saint Claude, I gather together all that I have told you: Be faithfully invariable in this resolution to remain in a very simple unity and unique simplicity of the presence of God, by an entire abandonment of yourself in his very holy will, and every time that you find your mind outside of it, bring it back there gently; for this simple love of trust and this surrender in the bosom of Our Lord and his Providence, excellently includes all that one can desire to unite oneself with God. Remain thus, without looking at what you do, or what will happen to you. Do not philosophize about your afflictions, but receive everything from the hand of God, remaining gentle, patient and acquiescing in all very simply to his holy will. May all your words and actions be accompanied by gentleness and simplicity. When you perceive that some desire is born in you, place it in God, wanting only him and the accomplishment of his holy will, leaving him the care of all the rest. Remain in the most holy solitude and nudity with Our crucified Lord. Jesus be He who makes of you, through you and for him his most adorable will. Amen. (see also St. Fr. de S. XXVI p.277-UEA p.601 and XVII p.322-UEA p.389).
This text written on the anniversary of our foundation, also applies to us. Since prayer and life are combined, we see that our holy Mother in her Responses traces the same itinerary for those who are led by the path of prayer of simple surrender to God (cf. Mission and Spirit p.56-58). Such Mother, such daughters, as we will see later. However, chronologically, some important facts take place here: the publication of the Treatise and the foundation of Moulins. The publication of the Treatise on the Love of God After having been written in the hearts of our holy Founders, the book is finally completed. In May, Michel Favre, mandated by the author, takes his “poor notebooks” to Lyon, in order to obtain their approval “for,” he says, “as I know myself to be very guilty, I most earnestly beg that they be charitably examined by the learned servants of God” (St. Fr. de S. XVII p.209). The preface and the dedicatory prayer are reread by our holy Mother, finally the manuscript is printed on July 31, 1616. Our holy Founder soon writes to her: “The book of the Love of God is made especially for you; this is why you can, and you must with love, practice the teachings that you have found there” (UEA p.608-St Fr. de S. XXVI p.284) She herself indicates this path to Mother Favre (Correspondence I Letter n°95): “Your path is that of the cross. Are you not blessed to walk with your Spouse, the cross on your back, and, in your heart, the pure love of his will?
Read books VIII, IX and X of the Treatise carefully, you will find great consolation there. I beg this sweet Savior to keep you naked of all that is not him and very perfectly united to him.” And also (Letter n°80): “I have an incomparable desire that you strip yourself of all that is not God, and that, having only one heart, you preserve it entirely for the Savior who gave his life to obtain our love and our salvation.” Our holy Mother thus traces the itinerary of divine love in the soul that gives itself to it without reserve: to die to all other love in order to live to that of Jesus. Then, what fertility!
The foundation of Moulins
“Since I have placed holocausts on the altar of God, was it not necessary that they should give off an odor of sweetness?” said our holy Founder in 1611 (St Fr. de S. XV p.38). The scent spread to Moulins by Madame des Gouffiers. She had left Lyon in January to finish her business with her Abbey. Winter stopped her in Moulins. There, she attracted several people who came to listen to her enthusiastic words about the Visitation, and soon the idea of a foundation germinated. Madame des Gouffiers informed the Founders in March, but they, given the current evolution of the legal status of the Visitation, were in no way in favor of a foundation in the immediate future. However, Madame des Gouffiers had won over the religious and civil figures of the city, and obtained the approval of Bishop de Marquemont, administrator of the diocese of Autun on which Moulins depended. She did so well that on June 25, during a solemn ceremony, the foundation was made in a house she had purchased. All that was missing were the Visitandines. What a surprise for the Founders when they received letters in July from the Archbishop and the Governor asking for them. They had to submit, as our holy Mother wrote to Madame des Gouffiers: “If the glory of God and your reputation had not been greatly involved on this occasion, we would not have done what we are doing to send you our sisters” (Correspondence I Letter No. 86).
There are four of them: Mother Jeanne-Charlotte de Bréchard, and sisters Françoise-Gabrielle Bally, Marie-Avoye Humbert and Jeanne-Marie de la Croix. The journey was not without risk because the Duke of Nemours was in revolt against his sovereign Charles-Emmanuel of Savoy. During these troubles, the Bishop comforted his people by assuring them of imminent peace. It was signed after the defeat of the Duke of Nemours, in November.
Before leaving for Moulins, on July 22, our blessed Father gave each of the foundresses a note. That of Mother de Bréchard bears these words: “The service that you are going to render to Our Lord and to his glorious Mother is apostolic; for (…) you are going to form a swarm of bees which, in a new hive, will do the housekeeping of divine love, more delicious than honey” (St Fr. de S. XVII p.258). The best honey is apparently drawn from bitter flowers: it is the most austere poverty that welcomes the swarm of Visitandines to Moulins, shortly after the superior falls ill and remains bedridden for two months. Mme des Gouffiers directs everything. Obviously, relations soon become difficult between them. It is a favorable season to save the honey of divine love, our holy Mother writes to Mother de Bréchard (Letter n°101): “Be a good housekeeper, while you are among the opportunities”. Our holy Founder says the same (XVII p.279): “Soften everything, see that it is the work of God to which this lady is employed according to her feeling, and you according to yours, and that both of you must bear and support each other for the love of the Savior”.
The soul that lives by this love must extend it to the dear neighbor.
Even, endowed with a “terrible spirit” like Madame des Gouffiers, is he not so loved and so lovable in his divine Heart?
The Institute of the Love of God
The Love of God is the reason for the existence of every religious institute. But we can expect that it will particularly structure the one founded by the Doctor of Love. For the Visitation, the object of so much concern, he wrote a new version of the constitutions, shortly before his departure for Grenoble where he was going to preach Advent (first preaching outside of Savoy since 1604, the Duke having subsequently refused all invitations). In these constitutions, the collaboration of our holy Mother is visible because her suggestions, written on the manuscript of 1615, are for the most part inserted in the text. The first article gives a new formulation of the end for which the congregation is erected: “So that such souls (…) henceforth have the means to withdraw from the world, (…) and apply themselves gently and perfectly to the exercise of divine love…” (St Fr. de S. XXV p.349). In the article “of the superior”, he recalls that in this congregation “the union of souls with God is its principal end, the daughters of it do not
withdrawing from the world not only to flee the pains and dangers that are there, but also, and mainly to be drawn, joined and united more closely and more strongly to their Savior and Creator” (p.384).
Union with God, union between communities.
In this year 1616, Sister Marie-Aimée de Blonay felt inspired to teach her novices all that she had learned and practiced at the first monastery. Our holy Founder replied to her (XVII p.184): “Make this light serve you for your whole life. Tell what you have seen, teach what you have heard [heard] in Annecy. This root is small, low and deep; but the branch that separates from it will perish, dry up and will only be good to be cut off and thrown into the fire.” A year after the founding of the second Visitation, an essential aspect of its charism already appears, it is the bond of love and fidelity with the monastery of Annecy that the Founders had shaped and taught. Their teaching is intended to be only the expression of God’s plan for the Visitation. For example, here is what our holy Mother wrote to the sisters of Châtel and Blonay (Letter No. 71): “What Our Lord desires of you and of all of us is humble and quiet submission to his holy will in all things, which his Providence sends us for his greater glory and our usefulness”. The following words perhaps refer to Sister Péronne-Marie whose health was failing (she would return to Annecy in July and Sister Anne-Françoise Chardon would replace her): “Let it be indifferent to us whether we are in health or sickness, in consolation or desolation. May our hearts have only one desire: that the holy will of God be done in us. Let us not philosophize about what may happen to us or to others, but let us remain gentle, humble and tranquil: in pain, be patient; in suffering, suffer; in action, act. (…) Look to God, faithfully using the opportunities to practice the virtues as they present themselves. When you have failed through cowardice or infidelity, do not be troubled, but remain gently humbled before God, suddenly rising up by an act of courage and trust. (…) For your neighbor, be content to want to love him and to have the desire to procure for him all the good that would be possible for you. Finally, walk boldly where God leads you (…) it is time to walk as if blind in this divine Providence.” What a stripping down that supposes!
To the superiors, our holy Mother shares her interior dispositions (Letter No. 103): “Remain in peace with your dear little troop. I beg you, in the name of Our Lord, into whose arms I beg you to abandon yourself without reserve. Tell him boldly, for he will take pleasure in it, that in him you claim to find all that is necessary for the conduct of the boat that he has given you, of which you entrust him with the helm, reserving for yourself the faithful care of his dear presence and to cooperate carefully with his holy grace by the exact observance of the rule. Thus stripped of yourself and entrusted to God, remain by a love of perfect trust all rested in the care and love that divine Goodness has for you. This attitude of abandonment must be maintained in all circumstances, to Mother Favre who was humiliated by the Archbishop, she writes (Letter n°100): “These are fruits of the most holy cross, this bitter mortification that this good Prelate has made for you. (…) How happy you are, because this divine Savior gives you charge upon charge. His Goodness will give you His holy strength! He will do it, since with all your soul you abandon yourself to His divine Providence and you have no other arms to carry you than His, nor any other breast to rest on than His. Stay there, like a gentle dove, all simple and all tranquil. Do not look at your afflictions, but at the love of Him who sends them to you. Abandonment, trust, simplicity, placing oneself in the hands of the Savior, with no other support than Him: the teaching of our holy Mother, wholly imbued with the Salesian spirit, shows how much the Visitation in its life and in its mysticism is “the Institute of the Love of God” (cf. St. Fr. de S. XXV p. XIV).
The offering of the daughters of the Visitation
to be continued