Saints and Blesseds who were Wives: St. Jane Frances de Chantal

St. Jane Frances de Chantal is known primarily for her holy friendship with St. Francis de Sales. She founded the order of the Visitation. However, before she was a religious, St. Jane Frances was married for 9 years, in a very holy, happy, and exemplary marriage.

I just want to reflect on a couple of her outstanding characteristics that have helped me in my marriage, but her biography is very worth reading. You can read a
brief biography and some of her writings there, or a more detailed one.

Her entire life was marked with extreme sadness. She very may well have been called a woman of sorrows, just as her mystical Spouse was the Man of Sorrows. The first few months of her young life witnessed the St. Bartholomew's Day massacres and the Hugenot wars were a part of her every day life while growing up. Her father, her husband, and her brother were in constant fear of their lives due to the religious and political conflicts of the time. Her mother died when she was only 2 years old, and the governess her father got for her treated her horribly. She was in constant spiritual anguish at the sight of so many souls leaving the true faith. She lost her beloved husband in a tragic accident, and only 4 of her 6 children survived infancy; the youngest of the four survivors died when she was only 10 years old. When her husband died, she was forced by her father-in-law to leave relatives that she loved, to live with relatives that hated her, and she was treated very badly at their hands.

The rest of her biography, as she eventually sought religious life (after having her remaining family well cared for) and met St. Francis de Sales, founding the order of the Visitation, is gone into more thoroughly in the links above.

St. Jane was extremely sensitive, very shy, had her feelings hurt easily, etc., but these weaknesses became her ticket to heaven. Instead of letting them build up to the point of dragging her down, she offered these extreme sadnesses (especially having her beloved husband die in her arms) to Jesus. She realized the true meaning of life, and was able to step out of what we see as reality, and go beyond it to the true reality. She loved her husband, her heart broke at him being taken away from her, but she loved Jesus and knew that His plan was perfect. Her heart was willingly broken many times, so that it would become a bigger dwelling for Himself. Giving her entire life up to Jesus, her children, her love, her happiness on earth, she became all the more happy because she was secure in Jesus.



The fact that in the midst of all this sorrow she was still able to discern a call to the religious life, shows how closely united her heart was to Jesus. Having finished one work on earth, that of being a good and consoling wife for her husband, and probably obtaining helping him obtain heaven upon his death, her children were now old enough to not need her, and she placed them all in the care of good and kind relatives. Jesus now wanted her all for herself. There is one story recounted of how her son, who was 15 at the time and basically at the age where he would have been considered a man, laid bodily down across the doorstep to keep his mother from leaving them all. Tears streaming down her face and her heart acquiring a new thorn into it, she courageously stepped over him, not looking back. It sounds so heartless, but Jesus was calling her. He doesn't call all mothers to do this, but St. Jane had another job to do on earth, and her son needed to learn now how to embrace Jesus, and adopt Mary as his mother. Ultimately, this would be their way to heaven as well as hers.

Her life shows how important it is for the wife of the home to maintain a loving and close relationship with Jesus Christ, for He is ultimately her true spouse. He is our true source of strength, enabling us to be good wives for our husbands. The love we give to our husbands, ultimately goes to Jesus, and the love we receive from our husbands, comes from Jesus. This relationship with the King of our Hearts will lead us on to hear His calls, to follow His will, no matter how much the world disagrees with what might be His will for us.

St. Jane Frances de Chantal, ora pro nobis.