This Saturday the Church celebrates the feast of a noble woman whose love for the Church became the seed that fell into the ground and produced a tree that has given comfort and support for more than four centuries.
St. Jane Frances Fremiot de Chantal was born in 1572. Married to a man of royalty, Baron de Chantal, she was the mother of six children. A devout Christian lifestyle was a major environment of the de Chantal household.
Following the death of her husband and after her children were gone from the home, she turned to St. Francis de Salles for spiritual guidance. His spiritual guidance let Jane to give much of herself to works of charity. The needs of the poor and the sick captivated her interests and her desire to serve others.
Jane, in time, founded the Visitation Order which many in Washington have come to know through the presence of the sisters at the Visitation monastery in Georgetown. After some years of carefully and prudently guiding the new religious group, Jane died in 1641 in her seventieth year.
Our prayers today might include the sisters at the monastery attached to Visitation Academy as well as Msgr. Donald Essex and the staff and parishioners at St. Jane de Chantal Parish in Bethesda.
St. Jane Frances Fremiot de Chantal was born in 1572. Married to a man of royalty, Baron de Chantal, she was the mother of six children. A devout Christian lifestyle was a major environment of the de Chantal household.
Following the death of her husband and after her children were gone from the home, she turned to St. Francis de Salles for spiritual guidance. His spiritual guidance let Jane to give much of herself to works of charity. The needs of the poor and the sick captivated her interests and her desire to serve others.
Jane, in time, founded the Visitation Order which many in Washington have come to know through the presence of the sisters at the Visitation monastery in Georgetown. After some years of carefully and prudently guiding the new religious group, Jane died in 1641 in her seventieth year.
Our prayers today might include the sisters at the monastery attached to Visitation Academy as well as Msgr. Donald Essex and the staff and parishioners at St. Jane de Chantal Parish in Bethesda.
