VisitationCharism

About the Visitation Charism

A charism is a gift given by the Holy Spirit to founders and foundresses in the Church not just for their own good but for the growth of other people. It is a graced way to look at the whole life and message of Jesus and to choose to accentuate some facets of His life in order to follow Jesus more closely in keeping with our baptism. An interesting point about a charism is that it exists only insofar as it is lived. It is not sufficient that it be given at one historical moment. It must be lived out now or it will die. A second aspect of a charism is that it can be described, but it cannot be defined. It is not merely a formula; rather, since it involves living, developing human beings, it is a mystery. How can we describe this special gift for the Visitation family which dates back to St. Francis de Sales and St. Jane de Chantal and in which we are invited to participate today?

Live Jesus

The first of seven key points to describe the Visitation charism is the motto, "Live Jesus." This prayer is stenciled or hung on the walls of the Visitation Academy. It is the basic message of the Gospels and Epistles, particularly of St. John and St. Paul, which Francis and Jane wanted their spiritual family to live. All members of the Visitation family are invited to model the life of Jesus not only externally but also internally by being united with Jesus, our risen Lord, to love and serve God's children, and to be the Body of Christ living and loving today.

In the book, Francis de Sales and Jane de Chantal: Letters of Spiritual Direction, Fr. Joseph Power, OSFS and Wendy Wright, a wife and mother, summarize this motto:

"To 'Live Jesus' was to have - in Francis de Sales' words - the name of Jesus engraved on one's heart. It was to allow that name to become one's own true name, to allow one's entire self - body, thoughts, affections, actions, decisions, work, devotion - to be animated by the reality of the person known by that name. To allow Jesus to live, one did not simply learn about Jesus or pray to Jesus or even imitate Jesus. One surrendered the vital center of one's being - one's heart, as understood in the holistic biblical sense - to another living presence."

Prayer

The second aspect of the charism is Prayer. Prayer as our ongoing relationship with God. Since Living Jesus means to surrender the vital center of our being to another living presence, it will come as no surprise that at Visitation we emphasize a life of prayer.

Until Vatican II or about 1969, we Sisters were strictly cloistered. We were able to be with our students in the academy area, but, as women devoted to prayer, we kept strict enclosure in the monastery area. We visited with our families through an iron grill. Before 1947 the Sisters never left the convent except to go to the hospital and after 1947 to go to St. Louis University, Fontbonne, or Webster University for degrees. Before that time the Jesuits came on the old Hodiamont streetcar from Grand Avenue to Cabanne and Belt and taught the Sisters courses toward their degrees. The Sisters became very accomplished bec ause many of them took all the courses that were offered. So although we conducted a school from the very beginning of our foundation in 1833, our cloister reminded us that we live in the tradition of a contemplative order whose primary end is to witness to a life of prayer and union with God.

Daily we Sisters gather for the celebration of the Liturgy of the Eucharist and four other times during the day to pray the Liturgy of the Hours, the official prayer of the whole Church. At all these times we pray especially for the needs and intentions of our Visitation family -- students, faculty, administration, alumnae, parents, Board members, website viewers, etc. This is the time we pray for the needs of the people who are suffering throughout the world. In addition, we are privileged to weave our day around private prayer and spiritual reading, some in the morning and some in the evening.

From our own commitment to our ongoing conscious union with God present with us, we invite our students to make prayer not just saying words but a real spirituality of loving, creaturely dependence on God. We see and hear this in our classes where teachers and students place themselves in an awareness of the presence of God and pray in praise, petition, and thanksgiving. Often they use a brief passage from Scripture, traditional vocal prayers, a religious poem, or a hymn on tape. We hope that our students are forming the good habit of turning to God Who is as close to us as our pulse and our breath and as necessary for life.

The Visitation

A third facet of our Visitation charism is the story of Mary's Visitation to Elizabeth.

Into the hillside country Mary went carrying Christ,

And all along the road the Christ she carried

Generously bestowed His grace on those she met.

I pray that I may carry Christ, for it may be

That some would never know of Him except through me.

The above prayer poem is dear to the heart of every Visitation nun. It describes the event found in the first chapter of the Gospel of Luke, the story of Mary's journey to the hill country of Ain Karim to visit her cousin Elizabeth. Mary has just received the good news that after centuries of expectation, she is to be the mother of the Messiah. Instead of focusing on herself and the honor she has received, she goes at once to visit her older cousin, Elizabeth, who, after years of prayerful waiting, is at last expecting a child, the unborn John the Baptist. The story is primarily one of the beauty of this relationship. When Elizabeth hears Mary's greeting, not only is she happy, but the baby John leaps for joy in his mother's womb. As members of the Visitation family we are called to be Marys and Elizabeths to one another, anticipating each others' needs as they become evident in our daily life, in our changing culture. Like Mary, we are to carry Jesus to each other, our students, their families, parents, and to the larger community. The poem also indicates that we live out our mission statement by daily attempting to imitate Mary in her openness to listen to the Lord and to give Jesus to others. In the midst of the busyness of our many tasks, we emphasize living in relationship. In short, the tradition of our charism is to be rooted in the mystery of the Visitation of Mary to Elizabeth, in loving service to others, and in living our mutual relationship with God and each other as Mary did. We Visitation nuns pray that you and every member of our Visitation family may live Jesus by carrying Jesus to others as Mary did.

Humility and Gentleness

A fourth essential aspect of our charism is humility and gentleness. "Humility" as a virtue or good habit may be misunderstood. It does not imply some fawning under-emphasis of our own worth or our gifts; rather it is simply living the truth that as human beings, we are not God. God is God. He is in charge. He is in control of our lives. We are His instruments, dependent on His life and love and power for our own. Thus a fitting response to our human condition is this basic recognition we call humility.

Closely connected with the virtue of humility is gentleness. We have only to look at any morning newspaper to see how violent our city and world are and to realize how much we need the countercultural virtue of gentleness as our ideal. "Gentleness" does not mean flabby permissiveness but an educational environment that respects individual differences. Sarcasm as a weapon that lessens a person's self-worth is never justified. Salesian discipline is firm and consistent and sometimes, "tough love," but we keep in mind St. Francis de Sales' dictum: "You can catch more flies with a spoonful of honey than with a barrel of vinegar." So we try anew each day to live a saying that St. Jane learned from St. Francis: "Nothing is so strong as gentleness; nothing is so gentle as real strength."

When we say that humility and gentleness are at the heart of our charism, we mean that to be quite literally true. In the Gospel of St. Matthew when Jesus wanted to identify the virtues that characterized Him, He said, "Learn of me that I am gentle and humble of heart." (Mt 11:29) When we try to live these key virtues of the charism, we are imitating the Heart of Jesus.

A Community of Faith

A fifth key point of our charism is our ongoing effort to form a community of faith. Here at Visitation we Sisters often pray for the intentions of our Visitation family. We Sisters consider all those in our school community - our students, faculty, staff, parents, and alumnae - as well as those we are asked to pray for and our own personal families to be our community of faith.
The emphasis on community in the Visitation order probably stems from our long tradition until Vatican II of cloister and enclosure. We Sisters are rooted here in our monastery as our primary family. We usually live together our entire lives which means that we need to develop skills to do so. Like partners in a marriage or in our families of origin, we learn to accept and love each person in good times and bad, conscious that the Lord is our source of unity and strength. We Sisters continue to be interested in and concerned for the intentions of every person for whom we have been asked to pray. We invite others to join with us in prayer, especially for vocations at this time. God has gathered us together from many different paths and separate journeys to form us into this community of faith. As we commemorate the 166 years since our foundation in the Midwest, we ask that our charism may continue to transform the hearts of us all.

If you regularly visit our website and are nourished by what you read here, then you too are a member of our Visitation family. Remember that we Sisters are here for you as a prayer support and as a companion in times of need during your journey through life. You may reach us with your requests and/or comments at our e-mail address: monastery@visitation.com.

Liberty of Spirit

Liberty of spirit or spiritual freedom is the next facet of the Visitation charism. St. Francis de Sales and St. Jane de Chantal emphasized and lived the ideal of human liberty. They wanted us who follow in their spiritual tradition to master the art of freeing ourselves and others to become all that God has intended from the beginning of time. This has exciting implications for our lives. It suggests that we try to attain internal self-discipline. Only by the self-imposition of some limits on our behavior are we truly free. This philosophy of stressing internal liberty implies that we avoid any harshness, rigidity, and, especially, sarcasm in our dealings with others. Our ideal is to show loving respect for authority rather than to demand a fearful submission through external force. Jane and Francis often said, "Do all through love; nothing through constraint." Whether we are parents, teachers, employers, or employees, guiding those under our care to internalize certain ground rules of behavior will enable them to blossom and mature. In other words, they and we will choose to do what is right. This is true freedom, the freedom of the children of God who know that God loves us!

Education: Spreading the Charism

Finally, the last aspect of our Visitation charism we describe is our ministry of education. Although we Visitation Sisters are primarily a contemplative community, we were founded in the United States to include in our mission the Catholic education of young women.

As mentioned above, the first Visitation monastery and academy was founded in 1799 in Georgetown, D.C. by three young women from Ireland. By 1833, the convent was home to over 100 Sisters. At that time Bishop Rosati of St. Louis responded to the request that a group of these Visitation Sisters come to the Midwest; the bishop suggested that the Sisters settle in Kaskaskia, Illinois since there already were religious in St. Louis. The annals tell the surprise ending of that journey:

"It was the third of May in the year eighteen hundred thirty-three. Into the well-nigh deserted village of Kaskaskia crawled three rough wagons, heavily laden with passengers and luggage. As they came to a creaking halt, the drivers jumped down and hastened to the assistance of a young girl and eight black-robed religious who stared about them in bewildered astonishment. They could not believe that this broad meadow, crossed by a quiet river, could be the 'Paris of the West,...the first capital of the State, the thriving frontier town of romantic story... Thirty scattered families...comprised what in earlier days had been an ambitious settlement of more than fourteen thousand inhabitants. But Mother Mary Agnes Brent was not to be daunted. With words of faith and courage, she comforted her little community. Her trust that God would reward the obedience of her Sisters by providing them with necessary shelter was quickly rewarded. ... When Colonel Pierre Menard and Captain William Morrison learned of the predicament of the Sisters, they hastened to offer their services to Mother Mary Agnes... Their daughters, granddaughters, and nieces were the first to be placed upon the roster of the school about to be opened."

As in Georgetown, the little community thrived. However, soon after they had built a new brick academy, a disastrous flood inundated the building. The Sisters were rescued by steamboat and came to St. Louis where, after living in several temporary residences, they settled first on Cass Avenue, then on Cabanne Avenue, and, finally on Ballas Road. The Sisters flourished in the Midwest; in 1873, they founded a new Visitation monastery and school in St. Paul, Minnesota. Everywhere they went the Sisters welcomed the opportunity to bring Jesus to others as Mary did to Elizabeth and the unborn John the Baptist at the Visitation.

The Second Vatican Council in the late 1960's has emphasized the role of the laity in this ministry of Catholic education. Our Visitation schools have been enriched by the diversity and gifts of our lay teachers, men and women. Each one of them models the Visitation charism in a unique way, and together we strive to educate our young women for college and for Christian life.

Love

You will remember that a charism is a special gift given by the Holy Spirit to foundresses and founders in the Church not just for their own good but for the growth of others. It is a graced way to look at the life and teachings of Jesus and to choose to focus on some aspects of His life in order to follow Him more closely. We have concentrated on one facet or spoke of a wheel at a time in these explanations: Live Jesus, prayer, the Visitation, gentleness and humility, community of faith, liberty of spirit, and our ministry of education.

At the center of this description of seven facets of our charism, our distinctive spirit, is St. Francis de Sales' and St. Jane de chantal's greatest desire and priority: that their followers would be free to extend outgoing love. At the heart of our Salesian enterprise are the Scripture quotations from St. Paul: "The love of Jesus Christ urges us on" and "We have no bond but the bond of love which is the bond of perfection." Francis often counseled the first Sisters to "Do all through love and nothing through force." We come, then, to a summary description of the charism of our Visitation family:

We are called to live Jesus in a community of faith through a life of love and prayer in the spirit of Francis and Jane by serving God and our neighbor in humility, gentleness, and liberty of spirit as Mary did at the Visitation.

At the right is the seven-spoked wheel listing these seven characteristics of the Visitation charism. We have discussed Live Jesus, our motto; Prayer, our primary activity; and Visitation, the Gospel mystery we call our own. We looked at Gentleness and Humility, our way of following Jesus; then at Community of Faith or our union with others. Liberty of Spirit, or personal freedom, and Education, our ministry among the people of God are the final spokes. And the hub of our wheel is Love, our basic bond. Love is the heart of the Visitation lifestyle.

May you recognize this charism as alive and flourishing in the lifestyle of any members of the Visitation family whom you may know. May you be so attracted to this spirit that you will commit yourself to living Jesus with us in your own circle of life companions. Then truly the charism of the Visitation will be strong and alive in the twenty-first century.

The above is adapted from: About the Visitation Charism by Sr. Marie Therese Ruthmann. Viz Vine, 1998-1999.