CHAPTER 24 - FRANCE
The small band of women passed their novitiate training in relative peace and eventually professed their private vows of charity and humility. Real humility is truth, according to St. Bernard of Clairvaux, not weakness. One does not draw unnecessary attention to oneself, but does not hide what God does in his or her life either. It was this very St. Bernard who was a family ancestor to Jane de Chantal. One incident during their year of novitiate was a little humbling and unsettling. Shortly after the small community of women moved to the Gallery house someone hung a sign on their door which simply referred to the place as "The Bishop’s Harem." The first group of nuns, now called the order of the Visitation of holy Mary, defended their good names once, and then lived peacefully with the results as the Introduction to a Devout Life would encourage them to do.
Other monasteries of the Visitation began springing up throughout Europe. Francis de Sales was bishop of his diocese and had the jurisdiction to permit monastics to leave their cloister to minister to the sick and poor, but other bishops did not seem to grasp this revolutionary concept of monastic life. As the order spread, the external trappings of monasticism were imposed in a more stringent fashion by Rome. The Visitation order was now cloistered. The founders and early members acquiesced to the will of God as found in the traditions that were imposed upon them. The time would come when there would be two expressions of the Visitation life--one totally enclosed, and the other with some external ministry such as retreat work, helping the sick and poor, or even a school.
The contemplative life that Jane de Chantal longed for had to be primarily an interior experience because she often found herself being carted about in a carriage, or traveling on horseback from monastery to monastery. She spoke with novices and superiors, as well as civil authorities and neighbors of the new communities. She prayed the psalms as she bumped along the roads and her faith grew over the years by doing the duties of her state in life. It was a faith that developed in darkness rather than in light. Her prayer was primarily one of dryness and struggle. Religious wars and other conflicts saddened her, but she took courage in a God she knew who calls us all to holiness through very ordinary events.
Most of the people whom she loved had died before her, and yet she continued on. Her last meeting with her beloved Francis de Sales was bittersweet. She had notes about her spiritual life that she wanted to share with the Bishop but she also had a stack of papers relating to the business of the monasteries. She asked him which material they might go over first. The Bishop stated that it might be best to deal with the affairs of the monasteries first. When that was completed he had to go away on business before they got to discuss Jane de Chantal's prayer experiences. While he was away, the former baroness and present mother foundress had a premonition--that her beloved spiritual friend was dead. It was not long before a messenger came to the door with exactly that news.
Jane de Chantal continued her work, and even gave testimony about the spiritual life of Bishop Francis de Sales when he was being investigated for possible canonization as a Saint. One day, while back from her travels and sitting quietly in her room, the mother foundress had another premonition. Someone was coming to visit her and he would take their charism to another land--a land she would never live to see.