Sub-Saharan Africa, 12 August, 2024 / 11:15 am (ACI Africa).
"In Madame de Chantal I have found the perfect woman, whom Solomon had difficulty finding in Jerusalem". - St. Francis de Sales, her spiritual director.
St. Jane Frances de Chantal was born in Dijon, France, on January 28, 1572, and died at the Visitation Convent Moulins on December 13, 1641.
Jane (Jeanne) was born into nobility, her father being the president of the parliament of Burgundy. At age 20 she was married to the Baron de Chantal. Jane had four children, and loved and served her young family deeply until the death of her husband in a hunting accident at age 28.
For seven years she was forced to live in the house of her father in law, a trial which she was forced to bare patiently due to his ill-disposition towards her, and it was during this time that she took a vow of perpetual chastity.
In all of her prayers, Jane asked God to send her a guide. In a vision, He showed her the spiritual director that He held in reserve for her. During Lent, in 1604, she visited her father at Dijon, where St. Francis de Sales was preaching at the Sainte Chapelle. She recognized in him the mysterious director who had been shown to her, and she placed herself under his guidance. Then began the famous correspondence between the two saints which produced volumes of letters of spiritual direction, some of which are available today, but most of which were destroyed by her upon the death of St. Francis.
