Jeanne Marie Chavoin – the Spirit of a Foundress
Meeting: 8 November 2007
Presenter: Sr Gail Reneker, sm
Topic: Jeanne Marie Chavoin – the Spirit of a Foundress
Sr Gail set the scene with the following pictures of the places in France where Jeanne Marie began and carried out her life work as Foundress of the Marist Sisters and her role in the beginnings of the Society of Mary.
- A time of spiritual formation
- A time of service of the poor, the sick, the children
- A time of discernment
Cerdon 1817-1825 ‘We left home and family to begin the Society of the Blessed Virgin’.
Marie Jotillon 1791 – 1838
‘The sister has been favoured by grace since childhood. The Lord has imparted to her many lights concerning the Society and the virtues of Mary’.
‘Having won Colin by her commitment to the work of Mary, she brought out hidden strengths in him. She gave him confidence, assurance of his role and courage to go forward. . She read his soul and told him how he had saddened the Holy Spirit by his lack of trust. Jeanne Marie like Colin received internal graces which they shared with one another. Some of those graces were intended for the progress of the Society. Since she shared his vision of the Society, ‘the work’, as the called it, of the Blessed Virgin, he had great trust in her. A spiritual intimacy developed between them. If she, Jean-Claude and Pierre, shared the same vision at Cerdon, Jean-Claude admitted that she had more Marist spirit than either of them. It was no accident that the pivotal intuition in Colin’s understanding of the Marist life and ministry ‘unknown and hidden’, first surfaced in a letter of Jeanne-Marie to Bishop Devie in 1824, indication enough of how one in mind and heart she and Colin were. Her conviction that it was Colin that Mary had chosen to guide her Society was of supreme importance in making Colin gradually assume a more central role.’ Donal Kerr, John Claude Colin, p. 174
First community of the Marist Sisters
- Jeanne Marie Chavoin, Marie Jotillon and Marie Gardet – 8th September 1823
- First clothing ceremony – 8th December 1824, Jeanne Marie elected superior.
- First Profession 8th September 1826
- Mother of Jesus
- Mary ‘our Good Mother’
- Confidence in Mary
- Mary – her guide and confidante
- Mary’s spirit
- spirit of faith and prayer: ‘In the three branches of the Society she is the person with the greatest spirit of faith and prayer’. (rmj 141) ‘Love God with all your heart like the Superior of the Marist Sisters at Belley.’ She is a saint, she is there, very simply, like a child of four’ (The Cure of Ars, John Mary Vianney)
- God as Provider: ‘We must have confidence. God is not dead. We must count on Providence, it has never let us down, and it will not fail us today. God will come to our help’.(rmj 241, 123 cf cmj 84,4)
- God alone
- aware of people and their needs
- the poor, the vulnerable, the disadvantaged
- those estranged from God and the church
- pastoral approach fashioned on Mary: warm gentle, reconciling, compassionate, non-judgemental ‘an instrument of mercy’
- missionary
- Humility, Simplicity, Poverty
The Dark Years 1840-1855 - Living the Paschal Mystery
Tensions between founder and foundress: about the name of the Sisters’ branch, the cloister, the lifestyle of the Sisters, members of the Chavoin family living at Bon Repos.
1853 – Jeanne Marie resigned, not wishing to be an obstacle to the ‘work of Mary’.
Sent to Meximieux for two years, lived a life of inactivity and isolation.
Jarnosse
‘The Marist Sisters are opening a little convent at Jarnosse. No one would have dreamt of choosing a poky little hole like that, but Providence sees further than men and does not disdain the last and least. It will bring a little warmth, to our famished people…the day before yesterday we went to see the sisters and I returned deeply moved. At the head of the new work is the Foundress of the whole Order of Marist Sisters. She is already an old woman; she speaks bad French, but after a few minutes with her, one perceives beneath the rough bark a strong, generous soul and above all a heart filled with love.’ Eugénie Gautier.(rmj 223)
Death of Jeanne Marie June 30 1858
‘ She did good with simplicity’ (Antoine Fouilland, local school master in summing up)
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