



Produced by Judith Wirawan, Karina Aleksandrova and the
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  SELECTED LETTERS OF
  ST. JANE FRANCES DE CHANTAL




  Nihil Obstat.
        F. THOMAS BERGH, O.S.B.,
              CENSOR DEPUTATUS.

  Imprimatur.
        EDM. CAN. SURMONT,
              VICARIUS GENERALIS.

  WESTMONASTERII,
        _Die 6 Novembris, 1917._





[Illustration: ST. JANE FRANCES DE CHANTAL.

(_Foundress of the Order of the Visitation._)]




  SELECTED LETTERS OF
  SAINT JANE FRANCES
  DE CHANTAL

  TRANSLATED BY
  THE SISTERS OF THE VISITATION
  HARROW

  WITH A PREFACE BY
  HIS EMINENCE CARDINAL BOURNE
  ARCHBISHOP OF WESTMINSTER


  R. & T. WASHBOURNE, LTD.
  PATERNOSTER ROW, LONDON
  AND AT MANCHESTER, BIRMINGHAM, AND GLASGOW

  _All rights reserved_
  1918




PREFACE


We are all apt so to idealise the Saints whom we love to study and
honour, and strive to imitate, that we are in danger of forgetting that
they possessed a human nature like our own, subject to many trials,
weaknesses and frailties. They had to struggle as we have to struggle.
The only difference is that their constancy and perseverance were
greater far than ours.

Biographers are often responsible for the false tendency to which we
allude. They like to give us the finished portrait of the Saints, and
only too often they omit in great part the details of the long and weary
toil that went to make the picture which they delight to paint.

In the case of some of the Saints we are able to come nearer to the
reality by reading the letters which have been preserved, in which in
their own handwriting they have set down, without thought of those who
in later days might read their words, the details of their daily life
and struggle. Thus in the few selected Letters of the holy foundress of
the Visitation which are now being published in an English translation
we get glimpses of her real character and spiritual growth which may be
more helpful to us than many pages of formal biography. In one place she
excuses the brevity of a letter because she is "feeling the cold to-day
and pressed for time." In another she tells a Sister, "do everything to
get well, for it is only your nerves." Nerves are evidently not a new
malady nor a lately devised excuse. She knew the weariness of delay:
"still no news from Rome.... I think His Grace the Archbishop would be
glad to help us.... Beg him, I beseech you, to push on the matter."

Haste and weather had their effect on her as on us: "I write in such
haste that I forget half of what I want to say.... We will make a
chalice veil for you, but not until the very hot weather is over, for
one cannot work properly while it lasts."

What mother, especially in these days of sorrow and anxiety, can read
unmoved the Saint's own words as she speaks of her daughter's death, and
of her fears about her son. "I am almost in despair... so miserable am
I about it that I do not know which way to turn, if not to the
Providence of God, there to bury my longings, confiding to His hands not
only the honour but even the salvation of this already half lost child.
Oh! the incomparable anguish of this affliction. No other grief can come
near to it."

And then we feel her mingled grief and joy when at last she learnt that
this, her only son, had given up his life, fighting for his King, after
a humble and fervent reception of the Sacraments.

Thus in the midst of the daily small worries of life, and of the great
sorrows that at one time or other fall to the lot of all, we see a brave
and generous soul, with human gifts and qualities like to our own,
treading her appointed path to God.

No one can read her words without carrying therefrom fresh courage for
his life, and a new determination to battle steadfastly to the end.

                                          FRANCIS CARDINAL BOURNE,
                                        _Archbishop of Westminster._

  FEAST OF ST. JANE FRANCES DE CHANT