SALESIAN LITERATURE

Hidden in God; - Essays and Talks on St. Jane Frances de Chantal

By Elisabeth Stopp

The present volume brings together Elisabeth Stopp’s talks and essays on St. Jane Frances de Chantal. Some of the items (I, II, V, VI, IX ) were written in the early 1960s, when she was involved in the all-consuming task of researching the saint's biography. When this appeared in 1962, under the title Madame de Chantal: Portrait of a Saint, it was received by reviewers with acclaim, and the quality of its writing prompted her election to the Royal Society of Literature. Today, almost forty years later, it remains the standard work on the subject in English. Other items (III, IV, VII, VIII) date from the 1980s, when she accepted an invitation from sisters of the Order of the Visitation of Holy Mary to deliver a series of talks about the life and spirituality of their foundress. Among the topics addressed are the co-founding of the Order of the Visitation of Holy Mary by Francis de Sales and Jane de Chantal; the changing image of Jane over the period of four centuries. In these, she looked back reflectively on her earlier work, and focused attention on the "hiddenness” of St. Chantal, an aspect of the saint's personality and holiness that she found of absorbing interest, and the precise nature of which she longed to be able to describe.

ISBN: 9780916101343

Price: $19.95 (122 pages + foreword)

Publisher: Saint Joseph's University Press (Published in 2000 at Philadelphia)

Table of Contents

Foreword

Illustrations

Introduction

The Life of St Jane de Chantal

  1. Chronology (From Madame dc Chantal: Portrait of a Saint, London: Faber, 1963).

  2. St. Chantal and St. Francis de Sales: The Founding of the Visitation (From St. Francis de Sales and the Order of the Visitation, Waldron: Monastery of the Visitation, 1962, in a revised version prepared by the author but never published)


The image of St. Jane de Chantal

  1. Changing Views of a Saint (Talk to Visitation Sisters at Waldron, 1986)

  2. From Mere de Chaugy's Memoires to Modern Times (Talk to Visitation Sisters at Waldron, 1986)

The Portrait of St. Jane de Chantal

  1. Writing the Portrait of a Saint: A Personal Account (Talk to Visitation Sisters at Wilmington, U.S.A., 1963)

  2. Bourbilly and Monthelon (An unpublished essay, 1961)

  3. The Portrait of a Saint: Twenty-Five Year On (Talk to Visitation Sisters at Waldron, 1986)

The Spirituality of St. Jane de Chantal

  1. Hiddenness: A Key Factor (Talk to Visitation Sisters at Waldron, 1986)

  2. The Heart of St. Chantal: A Meditation for Her Feast Day (An unpublished essay, 1962)


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