Having pledged themselves and all concerns to God, many people think that religious and spiritual people do not experience spiritual dryness and inclinations to sinful ways.
On the contrary, Satan and his cohorts exert more effort to tempt them to rebel and displease God, according to theologians.
Before he died, Christophe de Rabutin Baron de Chantal, forgave the man who accidentally killed him in a hunting accident. He told the man, “Don’t commit the sin of hating yourself when you have done nothing wrong,” noted the Franciscan Media in a blog.
Indeed, the baron forgave his killer. But, not Jane, who was in anguish and broken hearted after the death of her mother, sister, stepmother and two children in succession.
“Good-hearted” Jane, as she was fondly called with a “deep faith installed by her father,” was not ready to forgive.
Life of joy and sorrow
Born as Jeane Frances Fremot in Dijon, France, to a wealthy family on January 28, 1572, her father was the royalist president of the parliament of Dijon. Her mother died when she was 18 month old and her father cared for her to have a good education and deep faith in God.
She grew up as a woman of beauty and refinement with a lively and cheerful disposition. Good hearted, it is said that even a stupid joke became hilarious if she retold it.
She married Baron de Chantal when she was 21. They had a happy life for eight years, although three of their seven children died during infancy.
She was still in sorrow when her husband died. She returned to her family’s home to nurse a deep feeling of dejection. Her 75-year-old father-in-law, a vain and extravagant man, threatened to disinherit her children if she does not return home. She did after four months.
In her own admonition, she “replaced self-scrutiny.” In meekness, she extended a “pure and simple glance of God’s goodness.” And “that is all the doing you have to worry about.” She struggled for a long time to forgive the man who caused her great sorrow.
She started by greeting him during street encounters. Then, she invited him to her house for longer conversations. And finally she was able to forgive him completely and became the godmother of his child.
Woman of profound faith
In 1604 she heard a Lenten sermon about the love of God in Dijon Chapel. It was delivered by Bishop Francis de Sales of Geneva. He presented a spiritual life on Earth. They became good friends, and he became her spiritual director. She desired to be a nun, but the bishop told her to defer her decision.
Then, she planned to start an order for women who are rejected by other congregations due to old age or poor health. Her married daughters approved of her plan but her 15-year-old-son, Celse-Benigne, resisted it.
Robert Ellsberg in All Saints disclosed a “melodramatic test for which Jeanne is especially remembered.” Celse laid “across the threshold of their home” and implored that she forget her plan. Without hesitation, Jeanne “stepped over him” and left.
The order was canonically established on June 6, 1610. It accepted women who desired to enter religious life but were rejected due to health or are too old to hurdle the rigors of cloistered life and strict ascetic way of existence.
For the first eight years, the Visitation Order of Mary, so named to exemplify the virtues of the Blessed Mother, was involved in public outreach projects that were not done by other congregations.
Her excellent administrative skills and deep spirituality attracted women of aristocracy who visited her and contributed generously to the order.
Later, Bishop Francis was obliged to make it a cloistered order following the rule of Saint Augustine. He wrote his treatise on the love of God for them.
Her son died in war in 1622, and also the cofounder of the congregation, Saint Frances Sales, in 1622.
A woman of “profound instinct for spiritual life,” she wrote: “No matter what happens, be gentle to yourself.”
Saint Vincent de Paul, a holy friend, wrote: “She was full of faith…. But for all that suffering, her face never lost its serenity, nor did she once relax in the fidelity God asked of her. And so I regard her as one of the holiest souls I have ever met on this Earth.”
She died on December 13, 1641, in Moulins, France. At the time of her death, the order had 86 houses in different countries.
She was beatified on November 21, 1751, by Pope Benedict XIV and canonized on July 16, 1767, by Pope Clement XIII.
Her feast day is August 12.
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Damo-Santiago is a former regional director of the Department of Education National Capital Region. She is currently a faculty member of Mater Redemptoris Collegium in Calauan, Laguna, and of Mater Redemptoris College in San Jose City, Nueva Ecija.
Image credits: Wikimedia Commons