Little-known fact: my not-so-secret Catholic name is Jane Frances de Chantal.
She was/is my patroness. (Expecto Patronus!). I chose her myself, which is a comfort to me. I still like her an awful lot, which means the me of now is not so very different from the me of then, even if our trappings are disparate.
Quotes from her:
"I write because I cannot refrain from doing so; for this morning I am more wearisome to myself than usual. My interior state is so gravely defective that, in anguish of spirit, I see myself giving way on every side."
-Letter to St. Francis de Sales
"What do you want me to do? I like sick people myself; I'm on their side."
-Upon being criticized for accepting old and sickly people into her order.
"Should you fall even fifty times a day, never on any account should that surprise or worry you. Instead, ever so gently set your heart back in the right direction and practice the opposite virtue, all the time speaking words of love and trust… after you have committed a thousand faults, as much as if you had committed only one. Once we have humbled ourselves for the faults God allows us to become aware of in ourselves, we must forget them and go forward."
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