Wednesday of the Nineteenth Week in Ordinary Time
Optional Memorial of Saint Jane Frances de Chantal, Religious
Today we celebrate the feast day of another great foundress of a religious order, St. Jane Frances de Chantal, the founder of the Order of the Visitation of Holy Mary. Her life was marked with challenge and change. Born into a wealthy family, she was married to a baron and had several children. When her husband died and left Jane as the caretaker of the estate, she managed it quite proficiently. Later, however, she heard the preaching of St. Francis de Sales and felt called to live a life in service to the poor. She then gathered a group of women around her, and her particular interest was for women who were considered too sick to enter other religious houses. Like Frances Xavier Cabrini, who was considered too sickly to join an existing order, Jane Frances de Chantal understood human weakness as a strength and moved forward to do great things. So many of the saints like Frances Xavier Cabrini and Jane Frances de Chantal remind us that at times we need to look adversity in the eye and move forward with God’s grace.