It's the Feast of
St. Jane Frances Fremiot de Chantal,
3rd Class, with the color of
White. In this episode: the meditation: "The Spirit of Sacrifice", today's news from the Church: "The Archbishop of Bourges on the July 1st Consecrations (Part 1)", a preview of this week's episode of The SSPX Podcast: "Sacred Restorations: New Novitiate for the Consoling Sisters in Denver, CO", and today's thought from the Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre.
Have feedback or questions about the DD or our other shows?
podcast@sspx.org
Sources Used Today:
- "The Spirit of Sacrifice" — From Trinity Sunday to the Assumption
- "The Archbishop of Bourges on the July 1st Consecrations (Part 1)" (FSSPX.news)
- The SSPX Podcast: "Sacred Restorations: New Novitiate for the Consoling Sisters in Denver, CO" (SSPX Podcast)
- The Spiritual Life — Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre (Angelus Press)
Please support our new project, the Archbishop Lefebvre Biography Audiobook:
Saint Jane Frances de Chantal lived several lives in one lifetime. She was a wife, mother, widow, religious foundress, and spiritual friend of one of the Church's great saints. And much of her holiness grew out of a tragedy she never expected.
She was born Jane Frances Frémyot in Dijon, France, in 1572. At twenty, she married Baron Christophe de Rabutin-Chantal. By all accounts, they genuinely loved each other. Jane managed the family estate, cared for the poor living nearby, and raised their children while her husband was frequently away.
Then, after only nine years of marriage, everything changed.
Christophe went hunting with a friend. During the hunt, the friend accidentally fired his gun, striking Christophe in the leg. He died several days later.
Jane was devastated.
She also struggled intensely to forgive the man who had killed her husband. This wasn't an abstract spiritual exercise. She knew him. She saw him. And for years, the pain remained.
Eventually, Jane did something remarkable. She not only forgave him, but became godmother to one of his children.
A few years later, another relationship changed her life.
While attending a Lenten sermon in Dijon, Jane heard Francis de Sales preach. She immediately recognized him as the spiritual guide she had been praying to find. Francis, remarkably, believed he had already seen Jane in a vision.
The two developed one of the great spiritual friendships in Catholic history.
Under Francis's direction, Jane gradually discovered that holiness didn't require dramatic penances. He encouraged her toward patience, gentleness, and doing God's will in ordinary circumstances.
Together they founded the Order of the Visitation in 1610. Their original idea was unusual. They wanted a community open even to women who were older, widowed, or physically unable to endure the severe austerities required by many religious orders. The sisters would combine prayer with works of charity.
Jane understood those women because she had already lived through marriage, motherhood, grief, and middle age herself.
By the time she died, she had helped establish dozens of Visitation monasteries across Europe.
There's also a beautiful connection that Jane never lived to see. Fifty years after the order's founding, a young Visitation nun named Margaret Mary Alacoque would receive the famous revelations of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. The community Jane and Francis created became the home from which that devotion spread throughout the Catholic world.
Jane died in 1641 after nearly seventy years filled with joy, loss, responsibility, friendship, and service.
Her story is a reminder that God doesn't waste the different chapters of our lives. Marriage prepared Jane for motherhood. Grief taught her forgiveness. Widowhood opened the way to religious life. And all of it became part of her path to heaven.
Saint Jane Frances de Chantal, courageous widow and gentle mother of the Visitation, pray for us.
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The SSPX Podcast is produced by Angelus Press, which has as its mission the fortification of traditional Catholics so that they can defend the Faith, and reaching out to those who have not yet found Tradition.
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The main goal of the Society of Saint Pius X is to preserve the Catholic Faith in its fullness and purity, to teach its truths, and to diffuse its virtues, especially through the Roman Catholic priesthood.
Authentic spiritual life, the sacraments, and the traditional liturgy are its primary means of bringing this life of grace to souls.
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