Comfort in Trials

(Photo credit: Patricia Hiatt) 

In this photo of the grave of St. Jane de Chantal in Annecy, my reflection is visible in the glass. 

I'm begging the saint to pray for me in my own life.

St. Jane de Chantal is praised in the Mass for her feast as excelling in all states of life: she was a wife, a mother, a widow, and a foundress of an order. Today's Words of Encouragement are taken from a letter she wrote to the superior of one of her convents when the convent was undergoing terrible trials and conflict from within and without:

"O my dearest daughter, how precious this state of things ought to be to you! Though all the world should rise up against you, you must put your strength in God and lose not a particle of your peace or tranquil submission to His will. Have courage and confidence. After this storm, calm will return."

~ St Jane de Chantal, in a letter to one of her spiritual daughters. 

Quoted in Monseigneur Bougaud's St. Chantal and the Foundation of the Visitation, 1895.