The Healing Journey

August 21, 2024

“Hold your eyes on God and leave the doing to him. That is all the doing you have to worry about.”
— St. Jane Frances de Chantal

Some of the Church’s greatest saints were women whose spiritual journey took a new direction when their husbands passed. On their healing journey, they found new meaning and purpose, and ultimately changed the world.

St. Elizabeth Ann Seton was 29 and had five children when her husband died, leaving the family destitute. She eventually converted to Catholicism because of her belief in the Real Presence, even though she was ostracized by friends and family members in high society. She founded the Sisters of Charity of St. Joseph’s to care for the poor and sick and also began the first Catholic schools in the United States.

You’ve probably never heard of St. Monegundis of Chartes, who lived in the sixth century. She married at a young age and had two daughters, who died in childbirth. Grief-stricken, she asked her husband to let her become a recluse so she could live alone in prayer. She built a hermitage in France and became a spiritual director for women who wanted to follow Christ.

St. Paula was a wealthy Roman woman who married at 15 and had five children. When her husband died, she began to serve the poor, and moved to Bethlehem with her daughter, where they began a convent. She became a colleague of St. Jerome and assisted him in translating the Bible into the vernacular.

St. Jane Frances de Chantal, whose feast we celebrate today, married at 20 and had six children. After her husband’s death in a hunting accident, she entered the Order of the Visitation of Holy Mary, which she and St. Francis de Sales founded. In the following years, she established convents throughout France.

St. Rita was forced to marry an abusive husband, even though she wanted to enter the convent. This torment continued for 18 years. Her husband ultimately repented but was killed in a dispute, and Rita entered the Augustinian convent of Cascia.

Other women have followed the same path to Christ, including St. Louise de Marillac, St. Elizabeth of Hungary and St. Matilda. Their loss and their grief led them down a different path that God opened up for them.

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