August 21: Saint Jane Frances de Chantal
The couple, we are told, offered a model of the most saintly marriage imaginable, and loved each other with extraordinary tenderness. She was married for eight years before her husband died in a hunting accident. She refused a second marriage and instead entered the Franciscan third order. Here is some advice for widows, that is repeated by Saint Paul and the Fathers, as well, but let us hear it in Saint Jane's words: My God, I beg without ceasing at the door of your mercy; would I myself want to be sent away the second or third time? Saint Paul tells us that wives are busy about pleasing their husbands and should only remarry after their husband dies if they are unable to remain chaste otherwise.
Butler's Lives of the Saints tells us: She found a family (when she married) , which, by the absence of the master, had not been much accustomed to regularity, which she made it her care to establish. She was very attentive to see that all her domestics were every day present at evening prayers; and at Mass on Sundays and great holydays in the parish church, on all other days at home. Regular hours were assigned for meals, and every employment and duty was discharged with great order, she being sensible that this is an indispensable part of virtue , to which few things are more fatal than the confusion of a disorderly life or family.
PRAYER: Saint Frances, lead all families to an orderly life of virtue. Amen.
