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January 23

SAINT JANE

When Mother Teresa’s private letters and other writings were published posthumously in 2009, many were shocked by the deep spiritual struggle she—a saint—experienced. For years, she was desolate and felt God’s absence. She wrote: “If I ever become a Saint—I will surely be one of ‘darkness.’”

Like Mother Teresa, Saint Jane de Chantal wrestled with intense spiritual torments. She is famous for cofounding the Visitation order with Saint Francis de Sales, and her picture is up all over the Visitation Monastery down the street. The biographies all claim that Jane had a happy marriage, though they also say there were seven pregnancies in eight years, and three of the babies died in infancy. The biographies also say that Jane’s husband was unfaithful to her, and she raised a child he fathered with another woman.

A happy marriage? Perhaps the standards were different in the seventeenth century.

In any case, Jane loved her husband. When he was killed in a hunting accident, Jane harbored rage and bitterness for years toward the man who accidentally shot her husband.

Another tidbit from the biographies—Jane was a shrewd business manager who provided for the poor. After her husband’s death, Jane’s father-in-law commandeered her and threatened to disinherit her children unless she managed his estate and helped raise his illegitimate offspring. Not a happy decade for her after her husband’s death—no wonder she spent those years twisted by sorrow, unwilling to forgive the man who killed her husband. She vowed never to marry again.

Jane, from the beginning, wanted a deeper relationship with God, but she struggled with forgiveness. Four years after her husband’s death, she heard a sermon preached by Francis de Sales, then the bishop of Geneva. Hearing Francis’s sermon was a turning point for Jane. She connected with his message—that all people are loved by God and called to live a holy life, even widows with children like herself. Jane reached out to Francis to ask if he would be her spiritual director, and Francis agreed to take Jane on. It was after meeting Francis that Jane was able to let go of the resentment she felt toward her husband’s killer and embrace a new calling in her life.

Jane and Francis had a remarkable relationship. In the introduction to a collection of their letters, Henri Nouwen wrote about what a special, Christ-centered, spiritual friendship the two of them modeled. Historically, Jane is depicted as the mentee, the female under the great care and leadership of Francis. But in their letters to one another, it becomes clear that they mutually influenced one another. Jane’s strong business acumen shines through, as well as her experience mothering and living for God within the confines of her familial obligations.

Originally Francis and Jane had wanted to establish a monastic community that was not enclosed, allowing the women to freely visit with the poor and needy without the separation of a cloister. Their vision for the religious order was to create a community for women who could not handle the rigor of ascetic orders that demand long hours of prayer on one’s knees. They wanted to welcome older women, the infirm, widows, or others who would be rejected from religious life. If all are called to holiness, they reasoned, what about women like Jane—in her 30s, widowed, a mother of four children? At that time, no other monastic community would grant entrance to a woman like her.

Francis and Jane had a special bond, and their letters to each other show an intense intimacy. Together they popularized a radical new philosophy of Christian spirituality that focused deeply on a universal call to holiness.

Jane had other spiritual friends, including Saint Vincent de Paul (founder of the Daughters of Charity). Upon Jane’s death, de Paul wrote: “She was full of faith, yet all her life had been tormented by thoughts against it.” Her faith impressed him because she faced the challenge of intense doubts, of intrusive thoughts that went against everything she worked for in her life, yet she continued walking in faith.

Jane continued on after Francis’s death, even after several of her adult children died and the Black Plague claimed many lives in her community. Some biographers wonder if she suffered from clinical depression in her later years. There is no denying that she was good at her work. When she died at age sixty-nine, there were some eighty-five autonomous Visitation monasteries, and she helped start them all.

When I show up at Calvary and find my spot toward the back, I sometimes see Jane in the pew ahead of me adjusting her long, black habit. During prayers I peek at her to see if her face betrays any sign of inner torment, but her face is slack and serene. Later, during the fellowship hour, I catch her slipping away through the back door. She must be getting back to her work, back to all that God has impressed on her to do.

Saint Jane had intense doubts, I know, yet she was also full of faith. It is paradoxical, and a little annoying. Jane was a mother, like me, juggling childcare and back-to-school nights and balancing the checkbook. She harbored resentment for many years toward the man who accidentally shot her husband. She embodies something her pal Saint Francis de Sales once wrote her: “I am as human as anyone could possibly be.”

Her imperfection makes her someone I can learn from. It’s from the real, human saints like Jane that we learn what holiness looks like “in the choices they made; in their struggles to be faithful, even in the face of doubts and disappointments; in their everyday victories over pride and selfishness; in their daily efforts to be more truthful, loving, and brave.”

Jane, too, was “spiritually single.” She was a foundress, a widow, a mother, and yet a profoundly real woman who evidently battled with her physical and mental health at times. She, like me, struggled with resentment. And still the Catholic Church considers her a saint.

It isn’t lost on me that Jane suffered from painful spiritual aridity—something I can relate to in this season of my life. But when I read her letters, I see an intimacy and openness. Despite her doubts, Jane made it a point to find spiritual companions for the journey. It was once she befriended Francis that she was able to forgive the past and embrace a new calling in her life.