Saint Jane Frances de Chantal

Jeanne-Françoise Frémyot was born in Dijon on January 28, 1572; her father was president of the parliament of Burgundy. In 1592 she married the Baron de Chantal and had six children — one of whom would become the father of Madame de Sévigné. Her husband died in 1601 in a hunting accident, shot by mistake by a friend. She was twenty-nine, with four living children, and she went through some very hard years: forgiving that man cost her an effort she described without hiding it. In 1604 Francis de Sales, bishop of Geneva, came to Dijon to preach the Lenten sermons. That meeting gave rise to one of the most famous spiritual friendships in the history of the Church, documented in a very long correspondence that is still read today. On June 6, 1610, in Annecy, they founded the Order of the Visitation together. Francis’s idea was new, and it met with opposition: a community without strict enclosure, open even to older women or women in frail health, whose sisters would go out to visit the sick in their homes. Rome later imposed enclosure, but the order grew: when Jane Frances died, it had eighty-seven monasteries. To go, she left her children, who were grown by then; the youngest, fifteen years old, lay down across the doorway so that she wouldn’t leave. She stepped past him, and wrote about it. She died in Moulins on December 13, 1641. Her memorial is celebrated on August 12. If your name is Jane or Joan, today is your name day.