Today is the "optional memorial" of St. Jeanne (or Jane) de Chantal, founder, along with St. Francis de Sales of the Visitation Sisters.
(Her feast day is confusing. It used to be August 21. Then, with the calendar revision, it was changed to December 12. Which, in the U.S. is celebrated as the Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe - so here in the States (and perhaps Latin countries - I don't know) - her memorial is...today.)
Jeanne de Chantal is a saint you need to know - married (happily), mother of six children (four who survived infancy), widowed, vowed to chastity, then seeking a way in which she could follow Christ, she met Bishop Francis de Sales, (Bishop of Geneva, but in exile because of those Calvinists) and together, in 1610, they founded the Order of the Visitation:
The Visitation, a contemplative order in the Church, was founded by Saint Francis de Sales and Saint Jane de Chantal “to give to God daughters of prayer, and souls so interior” that they may be found worthy to adore God in spirit and in truth.” (Constitution 1)
For almost four centuries (1610 – 2004) Visitation Sisters throughout the world have striven to live the Gospel of Jesus in accordance with the spirit of their Founders. Saint Francis and Saint Jane wanted their daughters to have a spirit “which seeks only God and tends continually to union with Him.” They taught the Visitation Sisters to live in a spirit “of profound humility toward God and of great gentleness toward the neighbor.” Moreover, the rule that they gave the Sisters does not emphasize external austerity. The Sisters were to make up for the lack of external penances by interior renunciations, great simplicity and joy in the common life.
The Visitation Sisters of Tyringham are cloistered, contemplative religious whose lives are dedicated to prayer and to living in community. In great simplicity we strive to be a gentle presence in a world threatened with terrorism and war. Our Salesian spirituality teaches us to be gentle towards ourselves, with each other, and with all persons with whom we come in contact.
According to the express wish of our Founders, we do not practice severe penances. In place of these austerities, we strive to live with our Sisters in gentleness and humility, by mortifying our self-will and our own personal preferences.
We particularly honor Our Lady in the mystery of her Visitation. In imitation of Mary, we endeavor to “Live Jesus”, to live the Christ-life as we witness to the Church and to the world.
As the Introduction to the fine edition of their "Letters of Spiritual Direction," part of the Paulist Press spirituality series says:
..."a congregation for women who felt drawn to a life of religious commitment but who were not sufficiently young, robust, or free of family ties to enter one of the austere reformed women's communities or who were simply not attracted to the physical austerity of these houses or to the lukewarm religiosity of the older lax religious orders.
The Visitation offered to women such as these a home--simple and modest in its physical ascetic demands yet rigorous in its interior pursuit of authentic Christian charity--where they could flower and become 'daughters of prayer.' The women were to follow a simplified monastic routine, saying a shortened version of the daily office, engaging in modest work. They were women called great intimacy with God who would realize a community of true charity among themselves. With graciousness, gentleness, and tender concern they were to lead each other to pure love of God. Women who had completed the novitiate were to express their love of God to neighbor by making visits to the poor and infirm in the surrounding neighborhood. There was also provision made for a liited number of laywomen to come within the community for brief periods of refreshement are retreat.
In part, the Visitation was one facet of de Sales's program for the building up of a society infused with the spirit of true devotion. In part, it was the culmination of the widow de Chantal's deepest personal longings to find a way to both uncompromisingly abandon herself to her religious impulses while still caring for the needs of her children and her extended family. "
If you have never dipped your toe into the riches of Salesian spirituality, do. You might be surprised how timely it is. The Introduction to the Devout Life by Francis de Sales is still in print, still popular, for a reason - it is spirituality for lay people, fully cognizant of the strains, stresses, limitations and possibilities of discipleship in the world. Jane and Francis' letters are a revelation as well - a revelation of what the love of Christ, shared and nurtured in a friendship, can do.
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