Louise de Marillac was a woman of deep faith who always sought to do God’s will! A reflection by Fr Hugo Sosa!
A few months after Luisa’s death, Vincent meets with the Daughters of Charity and tells them:
“What a beautiful picture God has set before your eyes! Yes, it is a picture to which you must look as a prototype to encourage you to do the same, to acquire that humility, that charity, that tolerance, that firmness in all your conduct, remembering how you tended in all things to conform your actions to those of Our Lord.” (SVP IX, 1235)
As we recently celebrated the jubilee year of “the light of Pentecost”, this invitation is renewed for us. We are invited to fix our eyes on her who, placing herself in the hands of the great artist, became a true work of art of charity, a great woman of faith and of “other shores”.
Woman of faith
The experience of “the light of Pentecost” is a mystical experience, and therefore one of faith. The year 1623 is a key year in Louise’s life: it is the year of darkness, but also of light. Thus we can see that, as in the great works of art, the life of faith is also made up of chiaroscuro. In her writings she mentions two dates, St. Monica’s Day[1] and the Ascension of the Lord[2] , which lead to “light”. After these dark nights, on June 4, 1623, the light comes:
“In an instant, my spirit was enlightened about his doubts”.[3] (E. 6)
This is the key experience that can be summed up in a single phrase: “my spirit was enlightened”. Because she is a woman of faith she was able to take the step from darkness to light, because she is a woman of faith she trusted in that enlightenment, because she is a woman of faith she waited with certainty for the fulfilment of the promises: “I understood that I would be in a place dedicated to serving my neighbour”.
Such was Luisa’s whole life. A woman of deep faith who always sought to do God’s will, of living hope in the God who is faithful to his promises and of charity incarnated in the service of those most in need.
In his spiritual testament we read:
“I continue to ask God’s blessing on you and I beg Him to grant you the grace to persevere in your vocation so that you may serve Him in the way He asks of you”. (E. 302)
What we heard from her in the last moments of her life, she continues to do today from heaven: to implore God’s blessing for all. And St. Vincent said to those sisters gathered to remember her virtues: “Courage! You have in Heaven a Mother who enjoys great influence” (SVP IX, 1235). (SVP IX, 1235)
Together with the blessing, she asks God for the grace of perseverance, which does not consist in staying still in one place, but in living one’s life and vocation in creative fidelity to the call received, therefore, in a dynamic of love that always aims at the goal, which is full union with God in the service of one’s neighbour. Therefore, perseverance, in the words of St. Louise “must be the last flower in our crown, since we have to acquire it in the last moment of our life in the grace and love of God”. (C. 33)
Woman from “other shores
The gospel of Mk 4:35-41 presents us with Jesus commanding his disciples to “cross over to the other side”. Where is the other shore? On the other side of Lake Galilee, that is to say, it is an invitation to go to a pagan and unknown land. And it was not easy to get there, they had to go through a storm, the danger of perishing and to experience “the sleeping of Jesus”, but at the same time they could also contemplate the power of Jesus who calms the storm.
How many times Louise had to cross to the other side! As soon as she was born, and perhaps without even knowing her mother, she landed on the shore of a royal monastery, where she was brought up with love, but without the affection of home. From there, because her father is dead and no one pays the fees of the famous monastery any more, she disembarks to the house of “Miss Devotee”. From there she disembarks into married life because in religious life she has been told that “God has other plans for her”.
In those years she learned to be a wife and mother, but widowhood led her back “to another shore”, to that of charitable service. And so she became a work of art in the hands of the great artist, a resilient, empathetic and creative mother. St. Vincent said: “love is creative to infinity” (SVP XI, 65), and indeed Louise’s love for God and the poor was fruitful creativity, thanks to the fact that she was not afraid to “cross over to the other shore”. Starting with the organisation of the Confraternities of Charity and of the Sisters. She was a true innovator and executive. She was capable of renewing the consecrated life (the Daughters of Charity in that context were a novelty) and of innovating in the field of service to the poor, not being indifferent to any poverty of her time.
As heirs of the charism of Vincent and Louise, we too are called to be Vincentians of other shores, to open the doors of our selfishness and fears that stagnate us, to go to the geographical and existential peripheries, and to meet the designs of God guided by the power of the Holy Spirit, who leads us firmly towards the fulfilment of his will and challenges us to continue to live under the impulse of the Holy Spirit.
In 2 Cor 5:14 we read: “the love of Christ urges us on”. She reminds us that St. Louise, from 1639 onwards, signed almost all her letters to the sisters with the phrase “in the love of Jesus crucified” and from 1643 onwards she began to use the seal of the Society, which embodies the Pauline phrase briefly modified: “the love of Jesus crucified urges us”.
Grateful for the example of holiness presented to us in St. Louise, let us ask the Lord that each one of us may experience that “the charity of Christ crucified urges us”, thus calling us to be people of deep faith, ready to go to other shores, actualising in us the whisper of the prophet.
P. Hugo R. Sosa, CM
[1] According to the liturgical calendar of that time, it was Thursday, May 4, 1623.
[2] It was Thursday 25 May 1623.
[3] SAINT LUISA DE MARILLAC. Correspondencia y escritos. Salamanca: CEME, 1985, E. 6 (Hereafter in the body of the text C. = correspondences and E. = writings).
