1617 and 1618
1617 was a year marked for our holy Founders by painful personal trials, the difficulties in Moulins and those of the construction of the monastery continued, while the steps in Rome for the transformation of the Institute languished. Divine pedagogy thus matured the little Institute in the crucible of trials and difficulties, slowness and uncertainties.
From the beginning of the year 1618 a passage opened: the “affairs of Rome” were resolved, the foundation of Grenoble was carried out in happy conditions, the Institute passed into adulthood by becoming a religious order and already an early fertility was announced.
The trials of the Founders
A letter from our holy Mother to our holy Founder (UEA p.428), which can only be dated between a wide range of 1610 and 1618, reveals to us her soul in the grip of terrible mystical suffering. “I see that I stagger at every turn in the anguish of my spirit, which is caused to me so extraordinarily by my interior deformity. The presence of God, which formerly gave me inexpressible contentment, now makes me shudder with fear. Where I see only one fault, the eye of my God sees an almost infinite number. It seems to me that this divine eye, which I adore with all the submission of my heart, pierces my soul and looks with indignation at all my thoughts, my works and my words, which keeps me in such distress of spirit that even death does not seem so painful to me to bear. I dread everything, not that I fear that someone will harm me, but I am afraid of displeasing God. Oh, how far it seems to me that divine assistance is far from me! Which made me spend this night in great bitterness, during which I did nothing but say: “My God, why do you abandon me? I am yours, make me as if I were yours”. (…) Notwithstanding the length of this painful dereliction, I said, although without feeling: “Yes, Lord, do whatever pleases you; overwhelm me, I submit to it; tear out, burn, cut down, whatever pleases you, for I am yours and I am willing”. Since God is my God, he is enough for me. I hope that he will still support me and that his infinite mercy will be favorable to me, finally his will will be eternally accomplished in me. Here is my weak and infirm heart in your hands, my very dear lord, you will order the medicine that it must take”.
We do not have the answer from our blessed Father, but we see that she applies to herself the acts that he himself would have given her to do. Her mystical ordeal experienced with such heroic fidelity to God makes her a spiritual Mother.
Her maternal heart bleeds for her much-loved son. By his escapades and misconduct, he fills her with sorrow. She writes to her nephew (Correspondence I Letter No. 141): “The life of your cousin [Celse-Bénigne] gives me an affliction of desolation and I am so infinitely touched by it that I do not know where to turn, except to Providence. Oh, incomparable pain and affliction! (…) Alas, he must be helped, my dear nephew. I cannot go beyond it, so much do tears blind me, and pain has seized me from all sides.”
The year 1617 was again marked for our holy Founders by bereavements that were equally cruel to them. Bernard de Sales died of an epidemic on May 23 in Turin. Our holy Founder informed Mother de Bréchard, who had also just learned of the Christian death of her father, for whose conversion she had offered her trials. He wrote to her (St Fr. de S. XVIII p.15): “Think where this affliction touches me, and see if mine is not weighed down by that of his poor little one [Marie-Aimée] and of our Mother, from whom I must go and take away the little hope that remained to them after the first news, on which we adored the decree of Providence. (…) God is good, and does all things in his goodness.” On the side of our holy Mother, the same heroic gentleness (Correspondence I Letter n°121): “With all the strength of my soul, I acquiesce to this most lovable will of God, entrusting to Him the soul of this dear child and this young widow who will often renew my pain. (…) Blessed be He who touches us! For finally we want to courageously embrace this cross and love it”. Marie-Aimée testified among “her tears, the most lovable, constant and religious piety” (St Fr. de S. XVIII p.19). But this extreme pain would lead her to death in three and a half months.
The child she was expecting suddenly announced himself on the night of September 5. Our holy Mother herself baptized her grandson at birth and he died immediately after. The following evening, the doctor judged that Marie-Aimée had only a few hours to live; our blessed Father rushed to the monastery. If the body was weakening, the spirit of Marie-Aimée rose to a high perfection. She received the sacraments of Penance and the Eucharist; then, she begged our holy Founders to give her the habit. Novice at nine o’clock, she was professed at ten, after having received Extreme Unction. Then pronouncing the holy name of Jesus three times, she expired. It was September 7, 1617, she was 19 years old. She was buried, the first, in the church of the monastery.
This spiritual ascension, our holy Founder evokes it with emotion to Mother Favre (St Fr. de S. XVIII p.76): “It is not the Madame de Thorens that you saw, although that one was very amiable. She is a Madame de Thorens all raised up in the desire to live only for God, all full of clarity of spiritual things and of the knowledge of God and of oneself, and such that one could hope that in a short time she would be another our Mother. Among those who saw her in this last illness, there were some who came to ask me leave to invoke her, moved by the spectacle of this death full of extreme pain, pains all sprinkled with: “O Passion and Death of my Jesus, I adore you, you are my hope. Long live Jesus and Mary, whom I love more than my life!”. For our holy Mother, to the anguish for Celse-Bénigne is added this painful mourning, she writes (Correspondence I Letter n°141): “It is an extreme pain to see myself deprived of the presence of such a dear daughter, but I adore with all my heart this divine will which gave her to me. Then her holy and happy death gives me great consolation.”
However, our holy Mother fell into a serious illness in October 1617, an illness that would last until the following February. From death springs life, Mother de Chaugy recounts in the history of the founding of the first monastery: “It seemed that this blessed deceased obtained from God that a large number of girls should come to possess the dear vocation that she had loved so much, because from all sides there was demand for establishments of the Visitation.”
In Grenoble, a new hive
Our holy Founder preached two Advents (1616 and 1617) and two Lents (1617 and 1618) in Grenoble, which was a favorite city for him. The sermons of our blessed Father had a great impact on souls. Knowing the presence of many Protestants in this city, he firmly bases his sermons on Holy Scripture and the Fathers of the Church (St Fr. de S. VIII pp.202-370). A Jesuit, Claude Boucard, after having twice embraced Protestantism, definitively returned to the Catholic faith during Lent in 1617. The following year, it was the turn of Marshal de Lesdiguières, but, for political reasons no doubt, he would not solemnly renounce Calvinism until 1622. Among the many Philothées of Grenoble who resorted to the direction of our holy Founder, let us note Madame de Granieu who succeeded, with the complicity of Mr. Michel Favre, in obtaining his acceptance that her portrait be made in 1618. The painter Jean-Baptiste Costaz would then make several copies of it, because they were requested from all sides.
Our blessed Father wrote to our holy Mother (UEA p.393-St Fr. de S. XVII p.356): “Twelve of the first of the city have surrendered to my daughters, and are working to establish here a House of our little Visitation.” President Le Blanc is the most ardent in this work. Soon our holy Founder nicely invites our holy Mother to join him in Grenoble (UEA p.413-St Fr. de S. XVII p.191): “We have just concluded with our good ladies the establishment of our monastery. (…) I beg you to gently prepare your little bees to go out at the first fine weather, and come to work in the new hive for which the sky is preparing plenty of dew.”
On April 7, 1618, our holy Mother arrived there with four novices from Grenoble (who had received their training in Annecy), and four professed sisters from Annecy: Mother Péronne-Marie de Châtel, Sisters Marie-Marguerite Milletot, Marie-Antoine Thiollier and Claude-Agnès Joly de la Roche (who would soon return to Annecy, replaced by Sister Marie-Françoise de Livron). The next day, their blessed Father, after celebrating Mass, declared this new monastery canonically founded. This fourth hive of the Visitation developed rapidly under the leadership of Mother Péronne-Marie de Châtel, of whom our holy Founder would say in 1619 upon his return from Paris: “In Grenoble, I found a superior who was entirely according to my own heart” (UEA p.457-St Fr. de S. XIX p.53). In 1621, the small community settled in the monastery built on the heights, a little away from the city. Our holy Founder was delighted: “I imagine that you are there, in this beautiful air, where you look down, as from a holy hermitage, on the world below, and see the heaven to which you aspire, uncovered” (St. Fr. de S. XX p.166). It still bears the name of “Saint Mary above”.
In Lyon, a school of humility In 1617, Bishop de Marquemont was having great difficulty in receiving postulants while awaiting the decision of the Holy See on the Visitation. Mother Favre accepted the humiliations with faith, but the cross was heavy. She wrote to our holy Founder in February 1617: “We live with such great uncertainties and humiliations that I sometimes do not know where we are. (…) With all these daily encounters full of mortifications, I have no feeling of confidence or courage, although, thanks be to God, we always feel, at the forefront of our minds, love for everything that happens. It must be admitted that everything that happens here leads strongly to humility, to whoever wants to profit from it. It seems to us that the fruit that Our Lord makes us draw from this is a destitution of all created things and the affection of holding on to God alone” (St Fr. de S. XVII p.422). Finally the Archbishop gave his permission and six sisters were able to make profession on June 18, 1617. Our holy Mother wrote to them (Correspondence I Letter n°123): “I implore them, these dear girls, to make themselves so much more simple, pure and perfect in the observance, so that soon they will ravish the Heart of their dear Spouse. Happy is he who thinks and works only to acquire or increase sovereign love! Certainly, I desire to die or to live only for that.”
The profession of the sisters took place in Bellecour where the small community had just settled after leaving its cradle on the rue du Griffon. This joy is still mixed with humiliations Bishop de Marquemont, as ambassador of the King of France, has left for Rome. But criticism of the Visitation persists in the ecclesiastical world. Our holy Founder writes to Mother Favre, showing that the foundation of his Institute has been long matured: “If these good Gentlemen had studied and thought as much to censure as we have done to establish, we would not have so many objections. I hope that soon everyone will be appeased by the conclusion that will be put to it in Rome.” (St Fr. de S. XVIII p.134).
In addition to these external contradictions, internal difficulties are added. First, there was a novice, Sister Jeanne-Marie Coton [Mme d’Aix] who could not adapt to certain customs of the Visitation, so her departure was decided in March 1617, with the agreement of her brother, the famous Jesuit who had been the confessor of Henri IV. Another departure, that of Sister Anne-Marie Bellet [Mme Chaudon] who had to leave the monastery before her profession because her husband had not persevered with the Capuchins. Another novice from the ranks of the Domestic Sisters was worried about only doing 1/2 hour of prayer in the morning. This was an opportunity for our holy Founder to give the Institute, which was emerging from childhood, a strong lesson in indifference. He wrote to Mother Favre (St Fr. de S. XVII p.360): “Those who enter must know that the congregation is only made to serve as a school and a guide to perfection, and that all the girls will be led there by the most suitable means, and that the most suitable will be those they do not choose. (…) One must unite one’s will, not to the means of serving God, but to his service and his good pleasure. Let this girl take the heart of a child, a will of wax and a spirit stripped of all kinds of affections, except that of loving God, and as for the means of loving him, they must be indifferent to her.”
Finally, it is the Mistress of novices herself, Sister Marie-Aimée de Blonay, who is troubled by the spiritual desolation she feels. Our holy Founder answers her (St Fr. de S. XVIII p.170): “My dear daughter, if Our Lord thinks of you and if he looks at you with love? Yes, he thinks of you. (…) To examine if your heart pleases him, it is not necessary to do so, but yes indeed if his Heart pleases you; and if you look at his Heart, it will be impossible for it not to please you, because it is a Heart so gentle, so condescending, so in love with puny creatures, provided that they recognize their misery! Who would not love this royal Heart, paternally maternal towards us”. With such confidence, the conduct of the novices is imbued with charity: “Help them advance in the love of their heavenly Spouse with a spirit of gentleness, patience, charity which makes you bear all the little weaknesses, negligence, tardiness and failings, without ever showing a single bit of astonishment” as our holy Mother wrote (Correspondence I Letter No. 157). It is ultimately a question of using towards one’s neighbor the same gentleness that the Heart of Jesus has towards us.
In Moulins, another school of humility
Mother de Bréchard, still struggling with the “terrible spirit” of Madame des Gouffiers, is invited by our holy Mother in March 1617 to use this test e as a privileged means: “You do very well to lower your soul under the hand of God and to embrace with a good heart humiliations and contradictions as things truly suitable to your smallness and misery. While you have the opportunities, become truly humble, gentle and simple, I beg you, so that, by this means, your poor dear heart that I love very tenderly may be a true Heart of Jesus” (Correspondence I Letter n°115). Finally, Mme des Gouffiers left Moulins in October and soon applied herself with zeal to the foundation of a Visitation in Paris. Our holy Founder wrote to Mother de Bréchard: “My very dear daughter, you who are the first Mothers and like the columns of this small congregation, must be greatly humble, virtuous and united to the spirit of God, since you see that from all sides you are desired, everywhere grafts and plants from your nurseries are sought” (St Fr. de S. XVIII p.137). Without humility or union with God: no true fertility.
In Annecy, the example and teaching of a saint Our holy Founder is on all fronts: the care of his beloved daughters, the preaching in Grenoble, do not make him neglect his diocese. At the synod of 1617, statutes were established which ordered ecclesiastics, under penalty of excommunication, to dismiss the women they would have in their house, if they do not have the specified degree of kinship. We see in a letter from our blessed Father of May 11 with what firmness he applied this decision, firmness inspired by his zeal for the dignity of life of priests.
On a completely different level, that of science, our blessed Father manifests an open-mindedness rare in the Church in this year 1617. Don Baranzano, a young and brilliant Barnabite of the college of Annecy, has just published a book, without the authorization of his superiors, in which he develops the ideas of Copernicus and Galileo: the sun and not the earth is the center of our universe. Cardinal Bellarmine, whose authority was great, had taken a position against this thesis. It was also the time of the preliminaries of the trial of Galileo. Summoned to Milan, Don Baranzano made a written retraction following the order of the superior general. Our holy Founder wrote to him to testify that this publication without permission was due to a certain simplicity and inadvertence and to assure that Don Baranzano would henceforth be on his guard. Finally he asked the Superior General to kindly send him back to Annecy. Our holy Founder said nothing about the theses in question and kept his confidence in Don Baranzano. In this debate between theologians and scientists, he knew that the knowledge of faith and the knowledge of reason could not contradict each other because they were daughters of the same Father. “We are happy,” says Father Lajeunie (St. Francis de Sales II p.97), “to see in this fight Saint Francis de Sales on the right side of the theological barricade.”
Another occasion, that of the construction of the monastery, manifests the courage and humility of the Founder. Mother de Chaugy relates (History of the foundation of the 1st monastery of Annecy): “God allowed for a great exercise of the holy Prelate, that the devil cast so much aversion into the minds of some to see this monastery erected, that with blows of stones, they chased the workers from the work and with blows of axes, they broke the towers of the workers. Our blessed Father said to the one who caused this scandal: “My friend, stop, stop, I beg you”. Seeing that he did nothing, he gently took his axe from him; he firmed up his face, and joining to his gentleness a pontifical majesty, he took up this character, making it understood that if one did not know how far the power of a bishop reaches over those who live in his diocese, that he would let them know by experience”. He himself evokes this fact in a letter (St Fr. de S. XVIII p.6): “I am a puny man, subject to passion; but, by the grace of God, since I have been a shepherd, I never say a word of anger to my sheep. (…) I was moved in truth, but I restrained my emotion, and confessed my weakness to our Mother, who, on this occasion, had no word of passion. (…) Neither our Mother nor I claim to build anything but a mediocre hive to house our poor bees who will only bother to gather honey on the celestial hills, and not with the size of their hive”.
In another letter: “Our daughters of the Visitation will make their building with inconvenience, but they will be very happy with it. (…) The Mother who governs this troop has learned so well to lodge on Mount Calvary that any other earthly dwelling seems too beautiful to her, (…) knowing well that the pilgrims, who will have to have retreat in this dwelling, will be so attentive to draw country [reach] the beautiful abode of their permanent city, that the rest will be indifferent to them”.
However, the difficulties are getting worse: the Prior of Dominicans denounces the construction in progress, then he cites the Visitation in court. After a trial lasting several months, a transaction could be made between the two neighboring communities on September 15, 1618, with onerous conditions for the Visitation. At that time our holy Founder shared a confidence with a friend (St. Fr. de S. XVIII p.281): “As our good Mother, all vigorously languishing, told me yesterday, if the sisters of our congregation are very humble and faithful to God, they will have the Heart of Jesus, their crucified Spouse, for their home and stay in this world, and his heavenly palace for their eternal habitation.” Let us therefore remain in this holy domicile!
In a letter in which he confides these same difficulties, our blessed Father writes (St. Fr. de S. XVIII p.8): “When I consider our Mother and her daughters, I give thanks to Him who judged me worthy of his trust on the occasion of this congregation. Alas, I sometimes have tears in my eyes when I consider my Calvinist Geneva. When I consider our poor, small and humble Visitation which will bring so much glory to God, I still have some consolation in being Bishop of this diocese; at least I will have done this good.” Thus, in his eyes, the Institute by its very humility counterbalances the pride of Geneva. These lines echo a letter from 1616 where he spoke thus of his daughters (St Fr. de S. XVII p.200): “I can say that they are of very good edification for all and for the heretics themselves, who, seeing or knowing how they live in this House, confess that their way of life can only come from the Holy Spirit. Also they pray particularly for the Holy Church and for the conversion of heretics.” This is the apostolate through prayer and through the radiance of an evangelical life entirely devoted to divine love. During this period 1617-1618, our holy Founder wrote “Notes relating to various points of observances” (St Fr. de S. XXV p.439). The third of these notes is particularly interesting: “The entire life of the sisters dedicated to their union with God, the reformation of the Church and the salvation of their neighbor”. Our holy Mother will recognize there the intention of our blessed Father for his daughters (Spiritual Directory article 1). With a view to this intimate union with God, the source of all apostolic fruitfulness, our holy Founder multiplies conversations and sermons.
From this period 1617-1618, twelve sermons (St Fr. de S. IX pp.84-216) are preserved, several for various feasts, in particular the feast of the Presentation in 1617 and that of the Visitation the following year, four sermons for vestments and one for a profession. With ever new freshness, our holy Founder returns to the principles of religious life: to let oneself be attracted to the scent of the perfumes of Jesus crucified; to listen to the Word of God in order to benefit from it by keeping it in one’s heart; to renew one’s vows is, with Our Lady, to bring all our affections to the altar so that they may be consumed by the fire of divine charity; to consider in the childhood of Jesus the model of self-denial, mortification and the three vows; to imitate Mary in her Visitation: her charity and her zeal for the salvation of the world, her humility which attracts the gaze of God, her haste to accomplish the divine will, her joy when we are visited by Our Lord in Holy Communion; to renounce the things of the earth and oneself, it is to this great renunciation that the daughters of the Visitation are called in order to acquire the pure love of God who wants to reign alone in their hearts; to bear witness to one’s courage like Our Lord by letting others do whatever they want to us; to think frequently about death helps us to carry out the work of our life; to love God with a love of preference is to reject everything that does not contribute to divine love; to unite oneself with God more perfectly and to be crucified with Christ by stripping oneself of the old man, such is the intention one must have to enter religion The images flourish at every turn: the fertility of the snow symbolizes that of the religious life which makes indifferent actions fertile and meritorious; the dishes of the meal that Abraham prepares for the three angels are related to the mortification of the heart, gentleness towards one’s neighbor, firmness in resolutions with the humility which attracts divine help; the white stone that each of the blessed receives is engraved with a word of love: I am all yours and you are all mine. the sheaves and the loaves offered in the Temple at Pentecost express the religious virtues: crumpled by obedience and ground by mortification, souls can receive the gift of the Holy Spirit; the wedding feast is that of the Cross where the betrothal of Jesus Christ with our souls is celebrated. The style of the sermons is not as direct as that of the interviews but the originality of the images, of the interpretation
On the other hand, sermons and conversations present religious life to us with the same requirement which is that of true love, a requirement always linked to boundless trust in the fidelity of the One who calls us. Our holy Mother has the conversations transcribed in order to communicate them to the other monasteries. She writes to the Mother of Châtel: “You will have all the conversations that Monsignor has given us and that he will still give us, (…) so that all the houses participate in this treasure” (Correspondence I Letter No. 180). Is it not the vocation of the monastery of Annecy to communicate to others all the spiritual treasure inherited from the Founders. It is also its vocation to pray for all the houses of the Visitation.
Our holy Mother wrote from Grenoble to the Assistant Sister of Annecy: “May they [the sisters] not forget these new and dear houses, which, to be planted here and there by the hand of Our Lord, must be precious and dear to us as our own, because it is the divine will that we remain in perfect unity of heart, as we are in exercises” (Correspondence I Letter No. 155).
The Institute has grown, it will experience a weaning. In October 1618, our holy Founder goes to Paris for a stay of several months, shortly after our holy Mother leaves for the foundation of Bourges, then that of Paris; she will not return to Annecy until 1623. Before leaving, the Visitation will pass into adulthood.
Transformation of the Institute
We must go back to the end of December 1616: Cardinal Bellarmine responds to the letters of our blessed Father. He advises her to “keep these women and widows in the state they are in” (Correspondence of Saint Jeanne de Chantal Volume I p.213 note n°3). This response does not change anything in the decision of our holy Founder who wrote to Mother Favre on the following February 28 (St Fr. de S. XVII p.349): “Our congregation is greatly esteemed as a congregation and will be greatly favored; but since we are in the process of reducing it to Religion, we must have a little more patience until we know what will be resolved”. The fact that a religious Order says the Little Office of Our Lady and not that of the Breviary is a problem in Rome. Don Juste Guérin, who must deal with various matters concerning the diocese of Geneva in Rome, will take care of obtaining the approval of the Visitation. He left Annecy in January 1618, armed with a letter from our holy Founder (XVIII p.140) summarizing some of the particularities of the Institute: “The business of the Ladies of the Visitation consists of this point: may it please His Holiness to allow them not to be obliged to say the Great Office. I must tell you that the rules [constitutions] whose approval is requested are in conformity with the rule of Saint Augustine, except for the absolute enclosure, which Saint Augustine had not established, to which nevertheless the sisters wish to subject themselves according to the Council of Trent. (…) But all things must be treated gently and with circumspection, because some ecclesiastics were not satisfied that in this congregation there was so little austerity; but we must always look to the end, which is to be able to receive the feeble [weak] women, whether in age or in complexion.”
Our holy Mother insists with our holy Founder with her customary ardor (Letter No. 150): “I want to tell you, my very dear Father, that if you write to Father Don Juste, you ask him to consider especially the end of our Institute, because if we are given this great Office, how will the elderly and weak-sighted women learn it? Are there not sisters here who have come only for this? Should not those who hold the helm of the Church take care to provide sheepfolds, as much for the lambs as for the sheep, and that care be taken of the sick as well as the healthy? (…) Finally, instill in the Father that above all he should make the end of this Institute understood and that the means marked out to achieve it are unique. (…) If we could have written to Don Juste, we would have done so, and at length.” This one arrived in Rome where the difficulties continue concerning the transformation of the Institute. For our blessed Father this is a good sign (XVIII p.186). “God be praised for your arrival in good health, as well as for the poor state in which you found the affair of the Visitation. I know so assuredly that our pretensions tend to the greater glory of God, that I cannot lose the hope of seeing them succeed, after his divine Majesty has tested our courage a little.
But nevertheless, in order that on our side we attract good success by all the submission that it will be possible for us, I will say to you: 1° that if you see from daylight that with a little importunity we can obtain the three articles that we ask (Office of Not re-Dame, widows in secular habit while waiting to be able to be nuns, retreatants for several days), I beg you to make every effort. 2° But, if you see that we cannot obtain all three, let us at least hold firm in the pursuit of the small Office; because the great Office would dissipate the end of this congregation, since it could not be said with the required gravity, nor with the correct pronunciation, and several women weak in sight or stomach, although greatly devout elsewhere, could not be received. (…) Provided that we obtain this article, we will be quite happy, even if the others, although greatly desirable, were refused. 3° Rather than putting the Great Office in this congregation, I would prefer to accept the party that Bishop de Lyon proposes: namely, that this congregation remain in title of simple congregation, with simple vows, and that it nevertheless pleased His Holiness to declare null, all the marriages that the sisters (which God never wants to allow) would want to contract after having made the said simple vows. If this could be obtained, I would prefer it, because all the difficulties would cease; but I am very afraid that it would be even more difficult to impetre [obtain] from the Holy See. 4° That if finally one cannot do better, one must at least try to obtain that this congregation be put in title of religion, but with remission of the obligation to say the Great Office, for as long as possible. (…) Finally, this article of the Little Office is so important, that to obtain it one must submit to all sorts of other rigors. Indeed, it will be necessary to renounce the stay in enclosure of the retreatants, as well as of the widows aspiring to the religious life but still having obligations in their family.
On April 23, 1618, Paul V signed the brief which authorized the Founder to erect his congregation into a religious order, with enclosure and solemn vows. He granted the nuns the privilege of singing the small Office of the Blessed Virgin, instead of the Roman breviary. But this privilege was only granted for seven years. In 1621, new steps will result in a ten-year extension after the seven years granted. It will be on July 9, 1626, that Pope Urban VIII will confirm the small Office for the Visitation in perpetuity. The brief of Paul V was received in Annecy in June 1618. During the summer our holy Founder once again examined the definitive text of the constitutions and wrote the preface. Our Holy Mother rejoices (Letter No. 186): “Monsignor has resolved to convert this house into a monastery, following his commission from the Pope, and thus we have the privilege of establishing ourselves in all the cities where the bishops wish to receive us, with the privilege of our little Office, and the only houses that are already made need to resort to Rome. Our rules are all ready, thank God, it will be an admirable book. God gives us the grace to observe them well!”
On October 9, 1618, Francis de Sales signs the approval of the constitutions. Compared to the constitutions of 1616-1617, there are some important changes: the article “on enclosure” is completely revised, those of “the entry of women into the house” and “of young girls” are deleted [the latter will be given in the customary], a chapter on the three ranks of the sisters appears for the first time. In 1620, the constitutions were reread by Father Étienne Binet S.J. Our holy Mother added her own to his remarks. Our holy Founder wrote to her (UEA p.490-St Fr. de S. XIX p.401): “I have adapted the constitutions as much as I know how, to the liking of the very good Father Binet and yours, and see nothing to add. It remains to be seen how we can keep all the houses together.” The book of definitive rules and constitutions was printed at the end of 1621. Our holy Mother wrote to the Archbishop of Bourges, her brother, on October 16, 1618 (Letter No. 187): “Before letting us leave here, Bishop of Geneva has today reduced our little congregation to a formal religion for which we owe and give much thanks to our good God. (…) I was given three or four months to unburden myself of my children’s affairs.” She describes the desire for a cloistered life that animates all the sisters: “His divine Goodness gave us a great disposition and interior attraction to live in absolute enclosure, with complete consolation of our souls” (Memoir on the establishment of the Visitation).
On October 16, Saint Francis de Sales, as founder and clerk of the Holy See, came to the monastery. He was accompanied by his grand vicar Jean François de Sales, by M. Michel Favre, and by his two servants canonically designated as witnesses. He ordered that the enclosure be kept according to the Council of Trent and the solemnity of the vows. Throughout this journey, we have seen how divine pedagogy led the small Institute in 1617 through paths of trial , uncertainties, contradictions and even humiliations. Then the journey became easier in 1618 to end with the transition of the Institute to the state of a religious Order. This entire journey was accompanied by lessons that were both gentle and strong given by our holy Founders in deeds and words. It was necessary for the Institute emerging from childhood and becoming a religious Order to receive this solid nourishment to continue its journey through the hazards of history while preserving and enriching the charism received for the good of the Church. Our holy Founder already saw this maturity and this fecundity dawning when he blessed God for having by his “mercy so promptly made our congregation, which was only a small nymph, a mother bee” (Annals of the 1st Monastery).
WORK – THE CONSTITUTIONS OF 1618: OF OBEDIENCE, OF CHASTITY, OF POVERTY OF HUMILITY, OF MODESTY OF THE ACCOUNT OF EVERY MONTH OF THE DIRECTOR
What “value of spiritual life” do you find there for today? –
LETTER TO SISTER MARIE-AIMEE DE BLONAY OF FEBRUARY 18, 1618 (VOLUME XVIII P.170) From this letter, which is a little gem, can you draw some important themes?
Source: Course of Sister Marie-Pierre VSM