St. Jane Frances de Chantal

A French baroness widowed at twenty-eight with four young children, Jane became the spiritual daughter of Francis de Sales, who guided her through the long path of letting go. After her children were grown she founded with him the Visitation Sisters in 1610, a community envisioned for women whose health or family circumstances kept them from stricter orders. By her death there were eighty-six houses across Europe.

Her path was anything but serene. She endured years of spiritual darkness and interior anguish, the death of her son in battle, and the plague that ravaged her convents. Through it all she clung to the quiet trust that Francis had taught her — "Do not look forward to the trials of this life with dread, but rather with full confidence that as they arise God will deliver you from them."

She died in 1641 at Moulins, having spent her final years governing the order with a calm authority born of suffering. St. Vincent de Paul, who knew her well, said at her death that she was "one of the holiest souls I have ever met." She was canonized in 1767, a model for all who must find God not in cloistered peace but in the midst of loss.