Homily for Memorial of St. Jane Frances de Chantal

Homily for the Memorial of
St. Jane Frances de Chantal

Aug. 12, 2021
Collect
St. Joseph’s Home, N.R.

Today’s Collect praises God for making St. Jane Frances de Chantal “radiant with outstanding merits in different walks of life.”  She was a  woman of the upper middle class and married a nobleman.  She enjoyed a very happy family life and nurtured her children—6 of them, I believe—until her husband was killed in a hunting accident.

Naturally, she was grief-stricken, but she pardoned the man who had killed her dear husband, practicing what Jesus commanded in today’s gospel (Matt 18:21-35).  That was only the beginning of her trials, tho, for she and the children had to move in with her father-in-law, who was rough and overbearing and also had a shrewish housekeeper.  Between them they made Jane’s life miserable.  In this widowhood, one of those “different walks of life,” her patience and sweetness eventually tamed her tormenters.  Again, practicing what Jesus commanded.  Most of us wouldn’t act that way.

Meanwhile, she pondered her future, praying for guidance.  By chance, she met Bp. Francis de Sales and recognized him as the guide who’d been pointed out to her in a dream.  They began a correspondence of spiritual direction that eventually led Francis to choose her for the founding of the Visitation—yet another calling for her.  And that, also, required adaptation because he and she had envisioned an active, apostolic society—hence the name Visitation, for they meant to visit the poor in their homes to catechize them and meet their various needs.  But the Holy See ruled they had to be cloistered, according to the Church’s practice in the early 17th century.

Jane outlived Francis by 19 years, seeing the Visitation spread rapidly thruout France under her prudent leadership.

St. Jane faithfully served the Lord and his people in multiple vocations.  Under one consecrated calling, we too have had to adapt our faithful following of Jesus—in different apostolates in different places, which required of us a lot of flexibility and sometimes was difficult.  Now you’re in this rather sheltered calling.  In all, we’ve had God’s grace and have been his instruments of grace, like St. Jane.