[00:00] Today we celebrate the memorial of Saint Jane Frances de Chantal. She is a saint who had quite an interesting life. She was both a wife, mother, and also a religious, and not just a religious, but a foundress of a religious order. Saint Jane was born in 1571, and she was known to have a very fiery spirit when she was a

[00:35] little kid. There was a friend of her father's, because they often had religious discussions, even around the table, and the father had a friend of his over, and he was talking about his doubts about the Eucharist, or various things in the faith, and Saint Jane piped up, and she was like, how could you go against the word of our Lord, and His revelation? And he, you know, condescendingly, he said, oh, you know, that's very nice, and he pulled out of his pocket some candy or something to give to her, and she ran over to the fireplace,

[01:11] and threw it in the fire, and said that she wasn't going to take anything from somebody who didn't trust in our Lord. So she had a very fiery spirit. When she was older, in her, well, early 20s, she married a baron, a very rich man, and this is all in France, by the way, in Dijon, in France, and she married this baron, and they both were very pious, and both of them would do many things for the poor.

[01:49] And Saint Jane Frances, she would often feed the poor. And even when people would try to take advantage of the alms that she would give, they would go to the back of the line again, and try to get, like, double, and people were telling her, like, why are you accepting this? You obviously know that they're doing this. And she said, how could I refuse them a second time, if our Lord does not refuse me, however many times I go to Him in my sins?

[02:20] And Saint Jane Frances had six children, and her marriage did not last very long, seven years. What happened, and this was a great trial for her, because what happened was her husband went on a hunt, and while he was hunting, there was an accident, and he caught a stray bullet, and he, you know, was dying. And now he forgave the person that did it, and he made sure the man who did it knew that

[02:53] he had done nothing wrong. He said, don't, he said, whatever you do, don't commit the sin of chastising yourself for something you did not do wrong when I'm gone. And it was different for her. She was furious. She had a hard time forgiving this person. She couldn't even, when living in a small town, she couldn't even stand seeing the person walk by her on the street. But she realized that she had to overcome this.

[03:25] And little by little, like, throughout a process of healing, she was able to look at the person. Then she was able to greet this man when he was on the street. Then she was able to visit his family and say some kind words to him, and eventually, she would even invite him over to their place and have him over for dinner as a friend.

[03:57] And then it got to the point where she was completely healed of this lack of forgiveness, I guess you could say. And she became the godmother of one of his children. So she understood that we are weak human beings, that sometimes the things that God asks of us can cause us somewhat of a pain. But our Lord always gives us the grace to overcome, and she used God's grace.

[04:31] When she didn't have to, she could have turned away from God's grace. But her spirituality was always to see everything as coming from the hands of God and under the umbrella of His divine providence, that nothing escapes His divine providence, whether it's something that, naturally speaking, we could say was bad, or the things that come to us that we would naturally perceive as good.

[05:02] And then at one point, she met Saint Francis de Sales, who became her spiritual director. He also became her best friend, her confidant, and they both, you know, they both grew in holiness together, and they actually met each other before they actually met each other, because both of them had dreams of each other.

[05:34] And when they met, they recognized each other, and they became very, you know, shared the same spirituality, to the point where Saint Francis de Sales asked if she would want to found a religious order. So she ended up founding a religious order when the kids were grown, and we know it as the Visitation Order. It's the order that Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque made famous through her revelations on the

[06:09] Sacred Heart. She had to endure many things in her life, and she was there when Saint Francis de Sales passed away. And she had many encouraging words for her sisters, because she would accept even women that otherwise wouldn't be accepted in other religious orders because of age, whether it be infirmity, circumstances, not having a dowry or a way of resources at that time to

[06:43] be able to enter into religious life. And she accepted them all, and she taught them this basic principle of seeing everything as the providence of God and also giving oneself up and sacrificing oneself for God's will. To submit to God, not just in the mind and accepting the revelation that He has given us through the ordinary means of the Church, even the things that might seem difficult

[07:15] or hard to understand, but also to submit and give over our wills to God's will, because she understood that that's the only true road to peace. As Saint Bonaventure said, no true happiness is found outside of doing God's will. And we have words of Saint Jane Frances herself to her sisters that were written down towards the end of her life. It says here, one day, Saint Jane spoke the following eloquent words, which listeners

[07:50] took down exactly as spoken. My dear daughters, many of our holy fathers in faith, men who were pillars of the Church, did not die martyrs. Why do you think that was? And then she asked her sisters, and they gave different responses. Well, I myself think it was because there's another martyrdom, the martyrdom of love. That's what we call the white martyrdom, the martyrdom that we're all called to live. Here God keeps His servants and handmaids in this present life so that they may labor

[08:25] for Him. And He makes of them both martyrs and confessors. I know, she added, that the daughters of the Visitation are meant to be martyrs of this kind and that by the favor of God, some of them may be more fortunate than others in that their desire has been granted, will actually suffer such a martyrdom. In other words, she's saying that God will allow this for some, just as we would say, you know, with God's grace, you know, we might be able to shed our blood for the faith.

[08:57] She was saying the same thing about this white martyrdom. One sister asked what form this martyrdom took. The saint answered, yield yourself fully to God and you will find out. In time, love takes its sword to the hidden recesses of our inmost soul and divides us from ourselves. I know one person whom love cut off from all that was dearest to her, just as completely and effectively as if a tyrant's blade had severed spirit from body.

[09:30] You know, some of us might understand what that means, anyone that's lost a spouse or a child or someone who is dear to them. And that's what she was talking about herself sometimes can feel like the heart is ripped into that half of yourself has been taken away. But she in her spirituality realized that even these things can become a healing, can become a source of grace and life for us if we offer it to God, a source of of holiness

[10:04] that our Lord wants us to have. They realized that she was speaking of herself. When another sister asked how long the martyrdom would continue, the same replied from the moment when we commit ourselves unreservedly to God until our last breath. I'm speaking, of course, of great souled individuals who keep nothing back for themselves, but instead are faithful in love. Our Lord does not intend this martyrdom for those who are weak in love and perseverance.

[10:35] Such people He lets continue on their mediocre way so that they will not be lost to Him. He never does violence to our free will. We should not worry about equality between the martyrdoms, the bloody martyrdom or white martyrdom. I do think, however, that the martyrdom of love cannot be relegated to a second place for love is as strong as death, for the martyrs of love suffer infinitely more in remaining in this life so as to serve God than if they died a thousand times over in testimony to

[11:10] their faith and love and fidelity. So Saint Jane Frances went to extreme lengths to teach those who were under her in many other times that sanctity and the holiness that our Lord wants of us is not conditioned on time or place or state in life, whether we're religious, whether we're priests, whether we're wives or husbands or whatever it is, it's not conditioned upon those things.

[11:45] What is conditioned upon is doing God's will, first of all, in the state in life that He calls us. And it is based on putting ourselves after God's will. And from there, He can lead us. And another thing, too, it's very important in spiritual life that we see everything is coming from the providence of God, that nothing zero escapes Him.

[12:15] Nothing escapes Him. And all things that happen to us, whether it's in God's plan A or B, you know, from the hands of others who are not doing God's will. There are many things that happen to us, you know, for the good and for the bad. But all these things can be used for by God for us if we are just willing to offer it to Him as a sacrifice, to not worry about our failings, our weaknesses, but like Saint Jane Frances, to understand that God can work through our weakness and make us strong.

[12:51] So eventually we can be like Saint Paul in growing in this grace, God's very life within us, that it will no longer be us who live, but Christ who lives in us.