SAINT FRANCIS DE SALES & THE DAUGHTERS OF THE CROSS

Patti Underwood

THE YEAR IS 1618. A young woman of 21, trapped in a difficult marriage, hears a famous preacher is coming to a nearby church for a series of talks. Hoping to meet him and perhaps snag a chance for private counsel, she determines to go hear him speak. Accompanied by her sister, she enters the church and is enrapt and inspired by his words. Afterward, the two ladies muster their courage and introduce themselves, and both are privileged to gain an appointment. Over the course of the speaker’s stay in Paris, each sister finds solace and direction in repeated meetings with him - direction which will change the course of their lives. The speaker is Francis de Sales, Bishop of Geneva, who has been persuaded to give the Lenten talks at the Cathedral of Notre Dame, Paris. The ladies are Madame Marie L’Huillier de Villeneuve and her sister, Helene Angelique. From the good bishop, Madame de Villeneuve receives confirmation and encouragement for her dream to educate and instruct young girls. He even gives her a copy of the Rule which he had given to Jeanne Frances de Chantal for her order, the Sisters of the Visitation of the Blessed Virgin Mary (the Visitandines). Helene is inspired to form her own religious vocation with the Visitandines, donating her fortune to establish a foundation in Paris in 1520. Declining to be named foundress, she gives that honor to the newly widowed Marie. This entitles Marie to live in the convent and raise her daughters there, where she soaks up the spirit and rhythms of the holy bishop’s Rule. Francis de Sales dies on December 28, 1622, but he has left Marie with his Rule, a portrait, and the spiritual support of Jeanne Frances de Chantal and the order she founded.

After daily mass, Marie spends her time tending the sick at Paris’ hospital, the Hotel Dieu, as one of Vincent de Paul’s Ladies of Charity. Still yearning to teach, she establishes several schools in poor sections of Paris, personally leading the religion classes.

In the following decade, Marie crosses paths with a devout, dedicated teacher from the little town of Roye in Picardy in the northeast of France. A warm relationship develops, and when the teachers of Roye are forced by war to flee to Paris, they find refuge with Marie. These ladies become the nucleus of Marie’s new order: the Daughters of the Cross. The Rule is approved by the Archbishop of Paris in 1640, and Marie settles her novices into the Visitandine convent, where her sister is superior, for formation. The following year, Marie and her group of four novices move into their first home and pronounce their vows of poverty, chastity and obedience. The Daughters of the Cross, founded on the Rule of St. Francis de Sales, is born.

Madame de Villeneuve guides her fledgling order through its first decade before going to her reward on January 15, 1650. Just over 200 years later, in 1855, a brave band of fervent missionary Daughters of the Cross land in Louisiana, eager to bring the light of faith to the scattered pioneer populace of the newly formed Diocese of Natchitoches. For over 140 years, the people of north Louisiana are the beneficiaries of their zeal and expertise, and their legacy lives on in the lives of their students, their children, their children’s children... Vive Jesu!

For further reading, check out Across Three Centuries by Sister Saint Ignatius, In White Splendor by Sister Marcella, Introduction to the Devout Life by St. Francis de Sales, or Treatise on the Love of God by St. Francis de Sales.

We are blessed to have the last member of Madame de Villeneuve's Daughters of the Cross still with us here in Shreveport. Sister Lucy Scallan, D.C. is 95 years old and loves to receive mail. If you would like to send her a card, you can address it to:

Sister Lucy Scallan, D. C. c/o Diocese of Shreveport 3500 Fairfield Ave Shreveport, LA 71104

Left: "Vive Jesu!" was the motto of St. Francis de Sales that was adopted by St. Jane Frances de Chantal for the Order of the Visitation and by Madame de Villeneuve for the Daughters of the Cross. Here is a picture of Sister Maria Smith, D.C. making her perpetual profession of vows, and you can see "Vive Jesus" on the altar cloth.