History of the Order

Founded by Two Saints

The Order of the Visitation was founded in 1610 by Saint Francis de Sales and Saint Jane Frances de Chantal in Annecy, Haute-Savoie, France in order to open religious life to all including older women and those whose constitutions were not strong enough for the more austere Orders. The desire was “to give to God daughters of prayer” who would honor our Lord in His hidden life by practicing the two virtues dearest to His Heart – humility and gentleness. In place of the austerities of the other Orders, the sisters would strive for interior perfection in the practice of the “little” virtues of humility, obedience, poverty, even-tempered charity, and patience, after the example of Mary in her journey of mercy to her cousin Elizabeth.

At first our Holy Father (Saint Francis de Sales) did not have a religious Order in mind; he wished to form a congregation without formal vows, where the cloister should be observed only during the year of novitiate, after which the sisters should be free to go out by turns to visit the sick and poor. The congregation was given the name of The Visitation of Holy Mary with the intention that the Sisters would follow the example of Virgin Mary and her joyful visit to her kinswoman Elizabeth, (known as “The Visitation” in the Roman Catholic Church). St. Jane and her little band of Sisters were known locally as the “Holy Mary’s”.

When the Sisters were invited to Lyons by Cardinal Denis-Simon de Marquemont, he insisted that the fledgling Congregation be established as a formal order with enclosure and solemn vows. St. Francis humbly acquiesced to this change, declaring that “God has had his way.” The little congregation was now an official Order.

The Lyons foundation (1615) was followed by foundations in Moulins (1616), Grenoble (1618), Bourges (1618), and Paris (1619). When Saint Francis de Sales died in 1622 there were 13 monasteries and at the death of Saint Jane Frances de Chantal in 1641 there were 86 Foundations.

The Order spread from France throughout the world. Today there are about 130 autonomous monasteries in Europe, Asia, Africa, North America, Central America, and South America.

Charism

“. . . what is the special spirit of the Visitation? I have always judged it to be a spirit of deep humility before God and of great gentleness towards our neighbor.”

(Saint Francis de Sales)

In fidelity to our own vocation, we strive to live the Gospel in accordance with the spirit of our founders:

  • “a spirit which seeks only God and tends continually to union with Him, indifferent to all except the divine good pleasure”
  • “a spirit of profound humility toward God and of great gentleness toward the neighbor.”
  • a spirit which does not emphasize external austerity, the sisters making up for this by interior renunciation, great simplicity, and joy
  • in the common life. (from our Constitutions)
  • We honor the Virgin Mary in her mystery of the Visitation by sharing in the freedom of her response, in the wonder of her praise, in her zeal for the world’s salvation. (from our Constitutions)

Through our Sister Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque, we have received the mission to make known and loved the Sacred Heart Jesus. Saint Margaret Mary received several revelations of the Sacred Heart and his great thirst to make known to the world his love and mercy.

We have also been blessed with seven sister-martyrs, Blessed Maria Gabriela Hinojosa and her companions, from our First Monastery in Madrid. They gave their lives for love of God in 1936 during the Spanish Civil War.

Among the several Visitandines whose causes have been opened, there is that of the Servant of God Sister Françoise-Thérèse Martin, better known as “Léonie”, the Visitandine sister of Saint Thérèse of the Child Jesus. She died on June 17, 1941. Of her, the postulator for her cause, Father Antonio Sangalli, wrote:

One can define “Léonie” as “the grace of the last place”…the place that no one wants to occupy. We do not know how God distributes our talents, what criteria He employs to give “to one person, five talents; to another, two talents; and to a third, only one.”

(Matt. 25:15)

Surely, to each, “according to his capacity.” Surely, we often spend our time—for some, their entire lives—by pursuing, if not regretting, the talent that we have not received; while we should be happy for the talent we have received… This is what the Servant of God did all her life, she who had no fear and did not run away to bury her talent in the ground.

(Cf. Matt. 25:25)

“. . . I have thought, my dear Mother, if you agree, we should take as our coat of arms a single heart pierced by two arrows, the whole enclosed in a crown of thorns, and with the poor heart serving to hold and support a cross which is to surmount it, and the heart is to be engraved with the sacred names of JESUS and MARY. . . . for indeed, our little congregation is the work of the hearts of Jesus and Mary. Our dying Savior gave birth to us by the wound in his sacred heart . . .”

(Saint Francis de Sales to Saint Jane de Chantal)

“The Religious of the Visitation, who are so happy as to observe their rules faithfully, may truly bear the name of Daughters of the Gospel, established especially to be imitators of the Sacred Heart of the Word Incarnate in His gentleness and humility. These virtues are, as it were, the foundation and basis of their Order, giving them the incomparable grace and privilege of bearing the title of Daughters of the Sacred Heart of Jesus.”

(St. Jane de Chantal)