Today, the great Feast of St. Mark the Evangelist, marks the 15th anniversary of marriage to my wonderful wife, Jeanne. Pondering our anniversary I am reminded of some of those great men and women saints whose holy friendships have so profoundly influenced the Church and the world: Augustine and Monica; Benedict and Scholastica; Francis and Clare. God, in His inscrutable providence, often pairs up individuals who will inspire and even incite one another to ever higher degrees of humility, charity, and ultimately sanctity which overflows into love of God and neighbor. I hereby share with you a brief sketch of two of these holy collaborators who lived in very difficult times, not unlike those that we are experiencing in today’s Church and world.

St. Francis de Sales  (1567-1622)

Francis was born to a noble family in Savoy in the southeast corner of France on August 21, 1567, the eldest of six sons. Studying theology in Paris he was came under a spiritual temptation to despair from which he was freed after making a vow of perpetual chastity and consecrating himself to the Blessed Mother Mary. He then went to Padua to take a law degree in 1591, returning to Savoy where a prosperous career awaited him. His father had even arranged an advantageous marriage for him. Instead, under the direction of his Jesuit spiritual director, Francis revealed his intention to enter the priesthood which caused a serious rift with his father. Francis patiently worked to convince his father of his true vocation who finally yielded, but only after the Bishop of Geneva obtained a papal patronage position for the young man. Francis was then allowed to be ordained in 1593.

Geneva was at the very center of Calvinist Protestantism so the Catholic bishopric had relocated to Annecy, some 20 miles away. In the second year of his priesthood Francis volunteered as a missionary to Le Chablais which had succumbed to the Calvinist doctrine. At great risk to his own life Francis began the daunting task of bringing the district back to the Catholic faith, even confounding Calvinist preachers sent out from Geneva. Several attempts against his life failed. By his heroic patience, kindness, and perseverance the young priest slowly began winning the hearts and minds of his listeners. For those who would not hear him he printed little tracts on the truths of the faith which he would slip under the household doors.

His reputation spread and through his vaunted charity, wisdom, and virtue as many as 40,000 people would eventually return to the Apostolic faith of their fathers.  So successful was he that by 1599 his bishop, Claude de Granier, appointed the 32 year old Francis as his coadjutor (auxiliary bishop with the right of succession) and sent him to Rome for confirmation. There he was examined by the Sacred College under Pope Clement VIII who was so impressed by the young candidate that he prophetically exclaimed, “Drink my son, and from your living wellspring may your waters issue forth, and may they become a public fountain where the world may quench its thirst.”

Three years later Bishop Granier died and Francis became the new Bishop of Geneva, still seated an Annecy due to Calvinist hostility in Geneva. As the prelate of the rugged mountainous diocese he visited his scattered parishes and guided his clergy with prudence while instituting a program of catechetical instruction for the people. He wrote countless letters and preached constantly while living very simply in order to better aid the needy. While on a mission to Dijon, Francis met a widow whom he had seen in a dream, Baroness Jane Frances de Chantal. After a time he became her spiritual director, and yet through her mystical experiences Francis himself was drawn deeper into the mystical relationship with God. Beginning in 1607 they collaborated to found the Institute of the Visitation of the Blessed Virgin for young girls and widows who felt called to religious life. The order of the Visitation has since spread throughout the world.

The following year he published An Introduction to the Devout Life which became one of the most popular books of spiritual devotion ever written. His gentleness and deep respect for others drew people in all walks of life not only to himself but more importantly to God. He literally became the apostle of joy, comparing humanity to the garden of life where each individual was seen as a beautiful manifestation of God’s love of variety. Francis summed up his world view succinctly. “Go courageously to do whatever you are called to do… Trust in God, depend on His providence; fear nothing.” His perennial meekness and sunny disposition won for him the reputation of “gentleman saint.” A true gentleman is one who has mastered perfect self control, a plateau that this saint surely reached early on, though he himself said that it took him 20 years to conquer his quick temper, a side of his temperament that no one who met him would have ever suspected.

Being in great demand as a preacher, Francis traveled extensively and his sermons were models of depth embroidered in simplicity. His maxim was, “To speak well we only need to love well.”  During his life he also authored a Treatise on the Love of God as well as Spiritual Conferences both addressed to the Sisters of the Visitation.  In Paris Francis associated with St. Vincent de Paul and other influential clerics. Due to his fame he was offered the position of coadjutor of Paris, but he refused all inducements preferring to return to his beloved Savoy. On a diplomatic journey through France the 55 year old bishop was seized by apoplexy in Lyons where he died in the gardener’s house attached to the Visitation convent on December 28, 1622. After some effort to remove his body from Lyons, where great crowds had assembled to view his remains, Francis was buried in the Visitation Convent of Annecy. He was canonized 42 years later by Pope Alaxander VII. 250 years after the saint’s death, Pope Pius IX declared Francis a Doctor of the Church calling him, “The Master and Restorer of Sacred Eloquence.” Today he is the patron saint of the Catholic press and writers, the deaf, and adult education.

St. Jane Frances de Chantal  (1572-1641)

Born in Dijon, Burgundy on January 28, 1572, Jane Frances was the daughter of the royalist president of the Burgundian Parliament. When she was 20 she married the Baron de Chantal with whom she bore six children, two of whom died soon after birth. Besides her four surviving children she took charge of three children of her deceased sister. In her husband’s frequent absences she artfully managed the estate while providing aid to the sick and poor of the surrounding neighborhood. Tragically, her husband was accidentally killed while hunting in 1601 leaving Jane a broken hearted widow at age 28. Taking a vow of chastity she returned to her father in Dijon, her mother having died in Jane’s infancy. Her father-in-law however demanded that she live with him so she divided her time between his castle at Monthelon and her father’s in Dijon. The time she spent at Monthelon proved to be a real purgation for her due to an overbearing servant whose excesses her father-in-law could not or would not curb.    

While visiting her father in Dijon during the Lenten season of 1604, she first heard the preaching of St. Francis de Sales whom she with difficulty convinced to become her spiritual director. Noting her highly sensitive nature Francis, in their correspondence, guided her to avoid scruples as well as overcoming anxieties. She also exhibited great vigor and so in her desire to undertake mortifications he advised caution and insisted on allowing for adequate periods of sleep. Like any good mother, Jane struggled as a widow with raising her son and three daughters. In 1610 her eldest daughter, Marie Aymee, ended up marrying Bernard de Sales, the Baron of Thorens and younger brother of Francis. Soon after, her youngest daughter Charlotte died and about the same time Francis’ mother, Madam de Sales, passed away. This series of events spurred Jane Frances to move with her one remaining daughter to Annecy to be near and assist with Baroness Marie Aymee, leaving her 14 year old son to the care of his grandfather in Dijon and her brother who was the Archbishop of Bourges. The boy resisted however and barred her way by laying prostrate in the doorway lest she leave him. With tears in her eyes, she stepped over her child’s body to continue on her new pathway in life.

At the same time Bishop Francis de Sales and Jane Frances had devised plans for a new religious congregation which would accept older women, widows, or those in poor health and were thereby excluded from more mainstream religious orders. This new congregation named the Institute of the Visitation of the Blessed Virgin was canonically established on Trinity Sunday, 1610. The bishop had recruited two other women, Marie Favre and Charlotte de Brechard for the venture and acquired a small house on Lake Annecy where Jane and her companions lived in community. She had by now provided for the education and security of her remaining children though they continued to give her heartache. Her son got into dueling which alarmed her greatly. She prayed continuously that he would be given God’s grace to die a Christian death. Eventually he would die a noble death on the battlefield, during a royal 1627 campaign against the Hugenots.

Under the direction of Bishop Francis, Jane’s community grew, attracting many women who had been rejected by other communities because of health or age issues. As such, the ascetical practices of the Visitation sisters were less rigid, nor were they cloistered for the first few years. A second house soon opened in Lyons and by the time the good bishop Francis died in 1622 their order could boast 13 houses. Criticism directed towards the order had earlier convinced Jane and Francis de Sales to adopt the canonical enclosure or cloister of the nuns. Certain criticisms did not stick, however. When criticized for accepting women in poor health Jane Frances replied, “What do you want me to do? I like sick people myself; I’m on their side.” After the Francis’ death St. Vincent de Paul assumed Jane’s spiritual direction.

Added to worries about her family, Jane was tormented by interior agonies of the soul during the last nine years of her life. Still, she developed a widespread reputation for holiness and the nobility would flock to the reception parlor of her Visitation convent. When she went to establish new foundations the people would spontaneously applaud her which greatly perplexed her. She invariably responded, “These people do not know me; they are mistaken!” She died on the feast of St. Lucy, December 13, 1641 at Moulin and was buried near her patron St. Francis de Sales in the Annecy convent. At the time of her death 86 convents of the Visitation had been established. By her canonization in 1767 that number had grown to 164.   She was named the patron of parents separated from children, in-law problems, loss of parents, and the forgotten.

Between them Sts. Francis de Sales and Jane Frances de Chantal did much to restore the good life of the Church and society in 17th century France. May their example be an inspiration to us as we struggle against the same forces of evil that work tirelessly to destroy the Faith, our families, and ordered civil society even to this day.

Francis J. Pierson +a.m.d.g.