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 St. Jane Frances de Chantal spent most of her life plagued by anxiety, doubts, depression, and anger.

After her husband was killed in a hunting accident (when 28-year-old Jane had 4 young children and had already buried 2), Jane was overcome with grief and anxiety and began her lifelong struggle against “suggestions of blasphemy, infidelity, and unbelief.” 

 

In the midst of this, Jane heard St. Francis de Sales preach and was finally able to forgive her husband's killer after 3 years. De Sales counseled her as she dealt with single motherhood, an over-zealous suitor, the pain of living with a cruel father-in-law, the decision to delay entering religious life to care for her children (and then the decision to enter in spite of their opposition), and the anguish of scrupulosity.

Jane also lived through the Bubonic Plague, through calumny and opposition, all while experiencing chronic depression and constant doubts. Late in life, she wrote, “I’ve had these temptations for 41 years now—do you think I’m going to give up after all this time? Absolutely not. I’ll never stop hoping in God.... Most often, there is a confused sort of strife in my soul. Between feelings of being plunged into impenetrable darkness that I am powerless to do anything about, I have a kind of spiritual nausea that tempts me to give up trying." 

 Her friend St. Vincent de Paul wrote, "She was full of faith, and yet all her life long she had been tormented by thoughts against it. Nor did she once relax in the fidelity God asked of her. And so I regard her as one of the holiest souls I have ever met on this earth." 

 This is so important: Jane Frances de Chantal was a Saint not *in spite of* her struggles and temptations and doubts and fears, but BECAUSE OF THEM.

Your struggles do not disqualify you. You are being called to be a saint in your doubts, fears, anxieties, and darkness, in this time of sorrow and confusion and turmoil and anger. This is your path to holiness, and when (by God's grace) you persevere, you will become a far greater saint because of these struggles than you ever would have been without them.

St. Jane Frances de Chantal, pray that our suffering would make us saints!