Sister, Mentor, Mother: St. Jane Frances de Chantal

Hello everyone!

The feast day for St. Jane Frances de Chantal is coming up (August 12th) and since she is my patron saint, I thought I'd post {almost} daily about her, why I picked her and how it is having a saint that's not one of the "popular kids". :P I'll also be praying a St. Jane Frances de Chantal novena leading up to her feast day, please join me! :D

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It was difficult choosing just one patron saint, and I know that you're allowed to enjoy or have affection for multiple saints but I really wanted one special saint that I could learn about and call on, a sort of "One Saint to Rule Them All" if you will.

I'm not even sure how I discovered St. Jane Frances de Chantal. I knew I wanted a woman, I wanted someone that I could learn from but that was also human i.e. NOT PERFECT. And I know that no saint is perfect but I am really intrigued by the brokenness...or rather, rising above your brokenness and discovering God. Sometimes it's difficult to remember that they didn't become saints until after they died. You can get so discouraged thinking I MUST BE PERFECT AND MUST NOT LOSE MY S$%t. Which I think is a guilt women already place on themselves but add some saint being all "saintly" and the pressure is enormous. But maybe that's just me... *ahem*

So originally I found this post and I really love it although I'm not sure of the accuracy. But I really, really want her friend to have said, "Even stupid jokes were funny when she told then," about her. Humor and laughter, especially of the "stupid" variety, is HUGE with me, and as soon as I read that, I was sold. Of course, when someone lived in the 1500s/1600s and wasn't super famous and no one was recording every minute of their lives, you do wonder how much is actually what happened but in this case, I choose to believe that she was hilarious.

Most accounts record that she was a mother, a wife, and talented at budgeting and running a household efficiently. Well, I'm with her on the first two, at least. :P So here was a woman that I felt I could relate to, she had experienced the same place in life that I am experiencing now, with all of its delights and frustrations, but also a woman that I thought I could learn from...both a sister and a mentor.

She dealt with frustrating people, circumstances, spiritual dryness, days full of night, while never abandoning her faith. She accepted the rejected. Another hot topic for me, although you might be rejected by anyone and everyone, God NEVER rejects you. That one, along with self love, has been a tough one for me to accept.

There's comfort in reading: "Don't commit the sin of hating yourself when you have done nothing wrong." Another thing I really hope she actually said.

Being a good wife and mother, running a household, accepting others, forgiving others, forgiving yourself, experiencing grief and coming out the other side a stronger, more faithful person, having faith when inside you're screaming something different, to lose ourselves in the "Ocean of the divine goodness".

Sounds like my kind of saint.

"Should you fall even fifty times a day, never on any account should that surprise or worry you. Instead, ever so gently set your heart back in the right direction and practice the opposite virtue, all the time speaking words of love and trust to our Lord after you have committed a thousand faults, as much as if you had committed only one. Once we have humbled ourselves for the faults God allows us to become aware of in ourselves, we must forget them and go forward."