Gift of Two Saints

Salesian Spirituality: the Gift of Two Saints

Looking at these two saints, we see that Francis de Sales, although a bishop of the Church, was also a man of the world.  For a man of his times, he was extremely well educated in the humanities, social graces, and law.  He could mingle with anyone and be at ease anywhere.  Since Francis moved about in the worldly circles of many of his directees, he could understand their difficulties in leading a God-centered lifestyle.  While his letters to them depict sensitivity to these needs, they also reflect firmness couched in a much-appreciated gentleness.  For Francis had his priorities straight; a person's state in life demanded certain behaviors and carried specific responsibilities.  People of the world were not to live like consecrated religious.  Family and business commitments held the highest priority for the man or woman of the world.  In fact, his directees were to take care that their religious practices inconvenienced no one.

Now, Jane de Chantal, our other saint, is a good example of this.  What a liberation she experienced after Francis became her spiritual director in 1604.  As she internalized Francis' maxim, "All through love, nothing through constraint," Jane blossomed.  She gradually let go of her perfectionism; even her temptations against faith became stepping stones in the stripping of her self-will.  When Jane asked for a rule of life, Francis said, "Better far to love obedience than to fear the consequences of disobedience.  Let your spirit have its freedom.  The choices are yours to make."  Francis challenged Jane to grow and she did.  She became willing for anything, provided it was the will of God - a far cry from the bereaved woman who had refused to speak to the man responsible for her husband’s fatal hunting accident. 

"Blessed are the pliable hearts for they shall never break."  This maxim describes what Jane had become under the tutelage of Francis de Sales.  Her pliability would be stretched during the next three years as she and Francis actually connived together to arrange the marriage of Jane's oldest daughter, Marie Aimee, with Francis' younger brother, Bernard.  It was not easy. Jane had to win her father's consent to give up his precious granddaughter.  Then her father-in-law demanded that Marie Aimee be eleven years old before the signing of the marriage contract in January 1609.  To Jane it seemed that with this marriage Providence had given her a good reason to move to Annecy.  With this in mind, she approached her father in June 1609 for the first time to tell him the plans for the founding of the Visitation and to obtain his consent for this move.  Their conversation was painful, and Benigne Fremyot agreed only after being assured that Francis de Sales had recommended this course of action.  But her brother Andre, the Archbishop of Bourges, was not so amenable; he adamantly refused to give her permission to leave.  Jane later said, "Since I was speaking to him as his sister and not as his spiritual daughter, I told him plainly that I absolutely could not betray my own soul."  In this encounter, Jane certainly did not behave here like the model submissive woman of the 17^th century.

The years passed quickly from 1610, when Visitation was founded, to the end of 1622, when Francis died.  In the beginning, Francis frequently visited the Sisters at the Gallery House where he spelled out for them our Salesian charism with its emphasis on living the little virtues.  These talks were written down almost verbatim by the Sisters and later were published as the Conferences.  By 1616 both Jane and Francis were increasingly busy, she with the founding of new monasteries throughout France and he with a multitude of political and ecclesial affairs.  Mother de Chaugy in her Memoires describes their last meeting together in Lyons on December 8, 1622.  Since the two saints had not seen each other for over three years, Jane was eager to open her soul to her director.  Francis, observing the hurry, although spiritual, in the one person he wanted to lead to true perfection, said gently but very seriously, "What's all this now, Mother?  Have you still problems with your desires and your will?  I should have thought you would have become like an angel by now."  He knew perfectly well that God had become her guide, so he continued, "Mother, when we get back to Annecy we can talk about ourselves; now, we must take care of the business of our Congregation.  Oh, how I love our little Institute, because there is so much love for God in it."  During the next four hours, Francis and Jane discussed different matters relating to the welfare of the Order.  Then Jane left for Grenoble where she spent Christmas.  On December 28, Francis de Sales died.  After Jane had finished her tour of the monasteries, she returned to Annecy where at long last, kneeling by the tomb of Francis, she was able to speak to him of the matters in her own heart. 

From the discussion so far it would seem that Jane was very dependent on Francis.  The reality was different.  Each of them held the other in highest respect.  In fact, Francis had saved and annotated all of his correspondence from Jane.  After his death these letters were returned to her but she immediately burned them.  We Visitation Sisters consider this a tragedy.  Francis also gave Jane credit for much of his inspiration and output found in his masterpiece, The Treatise on the Love of God.

Actually, Jane and Francis were very different in their personalities.  Francis' calmness, patience, and suavity contrasted greatly with Jane's ardor, eagerness, and compassion.  This fact was commented upon long before the days of modern psychology.  Bougaud, the 19th century author of Jane's definitive biography, compares the two saints in this way.  I quote: "Francis de Sales might be ranked with the tender and affectionate John the Apostle or Ambrose, or Francis of Assisi; Jane de Chantal, on the contrary, is of the firm and zealous race of the Apostle Paul, or Ignatius or Teresa of Avila.  However that may be, their diversity of disposition and character is evident.  It is seen even in their styles of writing.  Francis' style is florid and verbose.  It flows through metaphors, symbols, and comparisons.  He revels in flowery descriptions.  Jane, on the contrary, writes in a vigorous, succinct style, without coloring, though sprightly and ardent, with something of a masculine energy unusual in her sex . But in every other respect they were alike.  Both were noble-minded persons who ardently loved God and yearned for the things of eternity."  Still I personally would differ with Bougaud's assessment that Francis sanctified himself by infusing firmness into his meekness while Jane was sanctified by infusing meekness into her firmness.  I agree that Jane was mellowed by her contact with Francis; some of her brusqueness disappeared under his guidance.  But Francis! Any young man who could stand up to a father like his and insist on becoming a priest scarcely needed an infusion of firmness!  I prefer the description that his was an iron fist in a velvet glove.

Jane lived an additional 19 years after Francis' death.  When Francis died at the end of 1622, there were 13 monasteries of the Visitation.  When Jane died at the end of 1641, there were 87, almost a seven-fold increase!  But a large number of monasteries had not been Jane's goal, she was intent on preserving and transmitting the gentle Christ-like charism that is unique to Visitation.  Jane approached this mission with confidence, strength, and fidelity.  She wrote to Mother de Chastellux, "All I need do in this life is to see all our monasteries committed to the loving observance of all the practices our blessed Father Francis has enjoined on us.  We must get all our sisters to work toward this, my dear daughter, but gently and softly, because what we most need among us is that gentle spirit of his."  Francis had laid the foundations for the Visitation by writing the constitutions and by interpreting them in his conferences, but it was Jane who fleshed out the dream of the Visitation through her answers, correspondence, and visits to the various monasteries.  To provide for the unity of a religious Order with no central governing group is an outstanding achievement.  So successful was Jane that even today, nearly four centuries later, you can go to any Visitation monastery and experience the gentle, loving spirit so characteristic of Salesian spirituality. 

Now I am shifting gears a bit.  My aim is to situate Salesian spirituality in today’s world and to point out why it is so attractive to people in our society.  It is estimated that for the past 10,000 years the mores of a patriarchal society have dominated western civilization.  Individualism, isolationism, and competition are rampant in our world.  Social scientists and psychologists say that our society is in the throes of a paradigm shift forced upon us by the changing values that are emerging as a result of the interest in preserving our environment and in insuring equal rights for women and other minorities.  As a result of these movements, interdependence, interrelatedness, and cooperation between people are becoming increasingly important in our society.  Looking at the differences between men and women, psychologists say that the male models of morality and spirituality define autonomy and individuation as maturity; they also emphasize the cardinal sins of pride, greed, and anger, and finally they set up pyramids of authority, as in the Church or in the business world.  This description sounds like the values of a patriarchal society.  Psychologists also maintain that if women listen to the voice within, they hear a call to full freedom and humanity as children of a loving and relational God.  Therefore, women tend to develop a caring morality and interrelated maturity, to equate sinfulness with a lack of perfection, and to form webs of connectedness with others.  These values had become increasingly predominant during the current paradigm shift.  That fact might explain the great influence of Francis' writings on the Vatican II documents.  But then came 9/11/22001 and the war on terrorism.  I pray that this tragedy will be only a temporary setback in what had been a movement towards mutual respect and peaceful relationships.  I think Salesian spirituality with its feminine values is attractive today because it resonates with the aspirations of an increasing number of people in our society.

Visitation is unique in the Church in that it was founded especially for women by a man who was the spiritual director of many women in cooperation with a woman who had experienced all the vocational choices open to women of her time; daughter, wife, mother, widow, and finally a religious.  Marriage and motherhood had developed in Jane the relational and interpersonal skills that later made her a gifted and maternal religious superior.  Furthermore, Jane was a practical person who in her interpretation of the teachings of Francis de Sales brought Salesian spirituality into the nitty gritty of everyday living. 

Now, let us concentrate on a key element in Salesian spirituality, union with the will of God's good pleasure.  Let us see what effect the psychological differences between Francis, as a man, and Jane, as a woman, had on their respective relationships with and responses to God in their lives.  For Francis, being united to the will of God's good pleasure meant accepting in a spirit of indifference all the ups and downs in his spiritual and material welfare and even in his human relationships.  Jane's response was similar to that of Francis as regards spiritual and material matters.  But in the realm of relationships, especially in those terminated by death, these two persons differed greatly in their living of the Salesian spirit.  Acceptance of what life held in store for her was always a painful process for Jane.  She struggled greatly at the time of her husband's death.  Of her four children who survived birth, only one lived longer than she.  Also, nearly all those closest to her died before she did.  For Jane, acceptance of things as they are became an acceptance of the process of grief and separation. 

Contemporary research in psychology suggests that, in general, women's self-identity is threatened by separation while the male identity is threatened by intimacy.  Bonding with others tends to make women feel deeply satisfied, fulfilled, and successful.  This implies that abandonment to the will of God's good pleasure, especially when it means acceptance of the death of a loved one, would evoke a different response in a woman than in a man.  Both men and women grieve deeply when confronted with loss but the focus of their grieving differs.  Jane's experience of abandonment at the death of a loved one was an identity-shattering grief.  So her response to situations of loss is more emotionally charged than Francis's.  Jane's grief centers upon the breaking of the bond existing between herself and the other with its consequent inner conflict. 

Earlier I had spoken about the verbosity of Francis in his writing and the succinct style of Jane's.  That is not true when Jane experiences the severing of a relationship by death.  Jane's letter regarding the death of Francis is more than seven times longer than Francis' letter regarding the death of his dearly loved mother.  Francis' reaction to his mother's death is consonant with the emphasis of male psychology on autonomy and separate identity.  It would seem then that Francis acted as a spiritually mature man and Jane as a spiritually mature woman in their manners of coping with loss.  But Jane's perception of accepting the will of God's good pleasure was not restricted to the surrendering of the deep interpersonal ties which she had cultivated. It was also shaped by her own interior encounter with God.  She was gifted with one of the longest dark nights of the soul in the history of the saints.  For over forty years she struggled in prayer with a painful experience of the absence of God, with doubts against the faith, and with almost a disgust for all things religious.  To be at peace in such a state involved tremendous courage and suffering.  She felt called to a total renunciation of self as her way to God. 

Both Francis and Jane were detached and fully abandoned to the will of God's good pleasure.  But Francis found it acceptable, even enlivening, to live with the emotional tension that not knowing could effect.  Witness the peace and freedom he experienced after casting himself on God's mercy during his temptation regarding predestination.  But for Jane, the act of surrender to God was coupled with a yearning for completion, for an experienced relationship with the divine.  As a woman, she desired to dwell in the embrace of a fully realized relationship with her God.  Yet she was honest in acknowledging that this did not happen.  Her love consisted in accepting the fact that God wished her to have but one single desire -- to renounce all, even her own desire for relationship with Him, into His hands.  For her, this was a martyrdom of love, and Jane's embrace of her own inner darkness introduces into Salesian spirituality a sense of courage and unswerving loyalty to one's own experience.  

Salesian spirituality, with its balance and universal appeal, was developed by these two persons during many years of spiritual friendship.  Their relationship began with the guidance of Jane by Francis; in time Francis turned to Jane for guidance, especially in prayer.  All of us today may profit from their experiences since we see in them both the masculine and feminine responses to the crises in the spiritual pilgrimage through life .