Despite debilitating depression, this French saint of the 17th century led a remarkable life.
What can you do if depressive feelings keep you from living a productive life? You could look forward to a time when medicine or psychology may discover a real cure for your illness. But that may be a long way off.
In the meantime, you could look back in the past to imitate the example of a 17th-century French saint who battled feelings of depression, but nonetheless lived a remarkably successful life. St. Jane Frances de Chantal (1572–1641) excelled in a succession of callings—wife and mother, manager of a large estate, widow and single parent, founder of a religious community and spiritual adviser to thousands of women.
To get an idea of what Jane was like, imagine a woman who combined the organizational skills of Elizabeth Dole, the charismatic charm of Oprah Winfrey and the practical spirituality of St. Thérèse of Lisieux. The remarkable thing about this saint is that she accomplished so much while suffering from depressive feelings for most of her adult life.
Beset by Tragedy
Jane was madly in love with her soldier-husband, Christophe. She dated the onset of her depression from the hunting accident that killed him in 1601. “A few months after I became a widow,” she later recalled, “it pleased God that my whole being should be beset by so many different, distressing temptations that, if he in his mercy had not taken pity on me, I am sure I should have perished in the fury of that storm, for I could get almost no relief from this anxiety, and I lost so much weight that I became quite unlike myself. You would hardly have recognized me.”
The temptations that hit Jane while she was mourning would crop up repeatedly throughout her life. She never specified the content of these troubling thoughts, except that she once described them as “suggestions of blasphemy, infidelity and unbelief.”
We know only that doubts about faith and fear of displeasing God often tormented her. Jane suffered this affliction for four decades. Her agony seems to be like the lifelong suffering of Mother Teresa of Calcutta. Come, Be My Light—the publication of Mother Teresa’s correspondences—shocked the world by revealing that for half a century she felt abandoned by God. Mother Teresa’s spiritual directors believe that God allowed her to endure the cross of this perpetual darkness as a way of relating to and praying for the suffering poor that she served.
Jane did not tell us enough to allow a detailed comparison of her anguish to that of Mother Teresa, except that she, too, suffered for many years. It seems, however, given her symptoms of sadness, doubt, weight loss, excessive guilt and indecisiveness, that Jane experienced a form of depression.
Through the years Jane learned some ways to deal with her depressive feelings. Her wise choices brought her some relief and made her emotional pain endurable. Although her prescription for depression did not cure her illness, it enabled her to live a fruitful life.
Consider the key elements of Jane’s effective approach to her problem: trusting God, relying on the support of friends, disciplining her negative thoughts and serving others.
Trusting In God
From the onset of St. Jane’s depression, a light shone in her darkness. Amid the crush of doubt and fear, she recognized the Lord’s invitation to rely on him to get her through the pain. She came to believe that God was allowing her troubles, so she made a heartfelt decision to embrace God’s will.
“O Lord Jesus,” she prayed, “I surrender to you all my will. Let me be your lute. Touch any string you please. Always and forever let me make music in perfect harmony with your own. Yes, Lord, with no ifs, ands, or buts…let your will be done in me.”
Jane’s relationship with God brought her moments of joy, but the reprieve was always temporary. Her depressive feelings would often return with a vengeance. But she never abandoned her trust in God. Toward the end of Jane’s life, she said, “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.
“If I can keep from offending God in spite of all this, then I am content with whatever it may please him to allow me to suffer, even if I must suffer for the rest of my life. I want only to do it knowing that he wants me to, and that in suffering I am being faithful to him.”
Finding a Friend
Jane developed healthy relationships with friends who supported her. Chief among these was St. Francis de Sales (1567–1622), who by then was the young bishop of Geneva. When she heard him preach on Ash Wednesday 1604, in Dijon, France, she sensed that God had sent him to help her with her trials. For the next six weeks, Jane refrained from pouring out her heart to him. Instead, she engaged him only in light conversations. But by the Wednesday of Holy Week she felt compelled to seek Francis’ counsel.
Jane unburdened herself to him with great relief. Over the next several months, Bishop Francis de Sales gently encouraged her to abandon herself to God and pay no attention to her doubts. Finally, late in the summer, he became her spiritual director.
“O Lord, how happy that day was for me!” she once said. “I could feel my soul turn completely around and step right out of its inner imprisonment.” The two became fast friends. Until St. Francis’ death in 1622, his care enabled St. Jane to experience a degree of spiritual freedom and inner peace. But even with the encouragement of her great friend, she still had to battle her troubling thoughts.
Disciplining Negative Thoughts
Early in their relationship, Francis told Jane that her temptations distressed her because she dreaded them. And that if she thought less of them, they could not harm her. The bishop summed up his counsel with this memorable example: “Recently I was near the beehives, and some bees flew onto my face. I wanted to raise my hand to brush them off. ‘No,’ a peasant said to me. ‘Don’t be afraid and don’t touch them. They won’t sting you unless you touch them.’ I trusted him, and not one stung me. Trust me, don’t fear these temptations; don’t touch them, and they won’t hurt you.”
Jane embraced this wisdom and applied it as best she could. But sometimes her doubts swarmed like bees, and while she tried not to touch them, their noisy buzzing still tormented her. Paradoxically, Jane used this advice to help many women to stop being hard on themselves. She just seems to have been unable to extend the same kindness to herself.
Serving Others/Healing Self
Throughout her life, Jane devoted herself to serving others. This selfless, outward focus brought her some measure of healing for her depression. After Christophe’s untimely death, she spent herself caring for her children. And for seven years she unselfishly managed the household of her mean and inconsiderate father-in-law.
In 1610, St. Jane collaborated with St. Francis in founding a religious community for women. That year she and two other women opened the first convent of the Sisters of the Visitation of Mary in Annecy, the town that served St. Francis as his base. Propelled by Jane’s charism and inspired by Francis’ guidance, within a few years the new order attracted many members.
The community spread quickly throughout all of France. Building this new religious order consumed Jane’s energy for the next three decades. The road was not easy, as she had to deal constantly with poverty, inadequate housing, sickness, internal conflicts, slander and opposition.
Before her death in 1641, Jane had established 87 Visitation convents. She crisscrossed France in arduous journeys to encourage the nuns personally. Appropriately, Jane became known as “Mother de Chantal” as she tenderly mothered her sisters as her own daughters.
So the community surrounded Jane with women whom she loved. And caring for them took attention away from her problems.
The Road to Relief
Anyone who wishes to find relief from depression could imitate these elements in St. Jane’s example:
■ Trust the Lord;
■ Maintain wholesome relationships with friends;
■ Refuse to fear or engage in troubling thoughts;
■ Divert attention from your problems by reaching out to others. This is not a cure-all, and it is not a substitute for professional help. Anyone who has signs of depression should seek medical help.
Depressed persons may find it difficult to trust God, but they should keep praying, even if it sometimes seems that no one is listening. That’s what Mother Teresa and St. Jane did. Depression sufferers may sometimes fail to shun destructive thoughts, but they should work at ignoring those buzzing tempters. And sufferers may find a measure of relief by spending time with people who love them and by reaching out to people in need.
Wise application of these principles can help a person struggling with depressive feelings live more successfully, as it did for St. Jane de Chantal.
Depression: Statistics and Symptoms
The National Institute of Mental Health reports that, in any given year, approximately 21 million American adults suffer from depression. Studies also show that about 80 percent of depressed people do not receive treatment. And medication and therapy work only for some of the 20 percent who seek help. Signs that a person may be suffering from depression include:
■ sadness throughout the day, nearly every day;
■ loss of interest or enjoyment in favorite activities;
■ feeling of worthlessness
■ excessive or inappropriate feelings of guilt;
■ fatigue or lack of energy;
■ change in appetite or weight;
■ trouble making decisions;
■ sleeping too much or too little;
■ thoughts of death or suicide.
If you or someone you know is suicidal, call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-8255.
