You're listening to Catholic Sprouts, the daily podcast for Catholic kids that strives to plant seeds of faith.

Hey there, Sprouts. Today is Tuesday, May 31st, 2022. Today is also the feast day of the visitation, the time when we remember Mary traveling to the hill country to visit her cousin Elizabeth while Mary was pregnant with Jesus and Elizabeth was pregnant with St. John the Baptist.

Kelly from Redbird Ministry is back today to continue talking to us about saints who experienced grief.

The next saint on deck is St. Jane Francis De Chantal.

St. Jane Francis De Chantel was happily married to Baron Christoph de Chantel.

They brought seven children into the world, four of whom survived two adulthood.

Unfortunately, their marital bliss ended abruptly with Christoph's accidental death while hunting. For Jane, this triggered a lifelong struggle with doubt. On one hand,

I am caught between the excruciating pain, and on the other hand, my love for our holy faith that is so deep that I would rather

die than deny the least article of it. Did she perhaps question why God would allow this to happen?

In any case, she chose steadfastly to trust in God, despite the sadness she felt.

She begged God to help navigate her way.

When St. Francis DeSales came to preach a Linton retreat at her parish,

she recognized him as the director she saw in a dream.

She asked him to be her spiritual director, albeitbeit with no small challenge, he accepted and in time Jane expressed her desire to become a Carmelite nun.

Frances suggested that she might start her own religious congregation.

Consequently, she founded the congregation of the visitation with the help of Francis. When she died,

there were 87 monasteries and tremendous growth after her death. Her journey was not on a radiant path.

However, most often, there is a confused sort of strife in my soul, she states, between feeling of being plunged in an impenetraitable darkness that I am powerless to do anything about it. I have a kind of spiritual nausea that tempts me to give up trying."

She didn't give up, however, but strove even more to claim to god is it possible that

st jane francis de chantal struggled with doubt have you ever asked god why he would allow someone to

die i know this is such a hard topic to unpack.

And our little minds can't process why

...