WOMEN IN THE CHURCH

     August 12 is the Memorial (optional) of St Jane de Chantal, and her life’s story deserves re-visiting and being meditated upon.

     She was a 16^th-17^th century French woman who married, bore six children (some of whom died in infancy), and after seven years of marriage became a widow. Even during her years as a wife and mother she was very attentive to the needs of the poor and the sick. Then after some years, she met St Francis de Sales. He convinced herral and to work with him to found an institute of women dedicated to being engaged in the corpo spiritual works of mercy. They were also to be welcoming to other women who had been rejected by religious communities because of age or health. Their inspiration was to be the action of the Blessed Mother in journeying to her own cousin, Elizabeth, to help her in her pregnancy with John the Baptist.

In the times she and Francis lived, it was unheard of to have a community of women in any other context than a cloistered convent, and so Francis was forced (I use the word advisedly) to transform his and Jane’s vision into a cloistered community—the Visitation Sisters.

Although the original idea of a group of women freed to engage in active ministry was quashed by Church authorities, the Visitation sisters held on to their desire to be a place where older women and those challenged by health issues could find a welcome. Their goal was to exemplify the virtues of humility and meekness, and (at least here in Mobile) their motto is “Live Jesus!” If you have ever had any contacts with the sisters here, you know how well they live their goal and motto. Sr Rose Marie (once the community’s reverend mother) and I shared friendship with a Benedictine priest, who was for a time the Abbot Primate of the Order. Sister Gabrielle was for a long time the sacristan of their chapel, and I worked with her during the numerous times I was spiritual director for a Cursillo weekend held there. God is good!

Bias against women in active apostolates was a sad feature of the culture of the day (inside and outside the Church). Thankfully, we are growing out of it, especially following the lead, some decades later, of St Vincent de Paul and his “partner in crime,” St Louise de Marillac. Their plan by-passed canonical requirements for female religious institutes to be cloistered by simply calling their women an “association.” We know them today as the Daughters of Charity, and especially in Alabama we are grateful for the ministries they have performed, especially with hospitals (at one time in Birmingham and Montgomery as well as here in Mobile), up and down the I-65 corridor all the way to Chicago, and in outreach to the poor (eg, at St James Major in Prichard) and elderly (the Allen Memorial). They are some of my dearest friends. One of them was my spiritual director for over 2 years while I was dealing with the death of my Father and discerning a possible return to seminary; another, a nurse-midwife, was my mate for watching Cubs games (she was also from Chicago). And so it goes, even through Dorothy Day and The Catholic Worker and the Missionaries of Charity of Mother Teresa. Thank God for the women in the life of the Church!                                                                             -Fr. David