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 VISITATION

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VISITATION

II. The Feast. — The earliest evidence of the ex- istence of the feast is its adoption by the Franciscan ChaiJter in 1263, upon the advice of St. Bonavcnture. The list of fciusts in thi> "Staluta Synodalia eccl. Ceiio- manensis" (1237, revised 1247; Maiisi, supplein., II, 1041), .iccordinfs to which this feast wius kept 2 July at Le Mans in 1247, may not be genuine. With the Franciscan Breviary this feast spread to many churches, hut was celebrated at various dates — at Prague and Ratisbon, 28 April; at York, 2 April; in Paris, 27 June; at Reims and Geneva, 8 July (cf. Grotefend, "Zeitrechnung", II, 2, 137). It was ex- tended to the entire Church by Urban VI, 6 April, 1389 (Decree published by Boniface IX, 9 Nov., 1389), with the hope that Christ and His Mother would visit the Church and put an end to the Great Schism which rent the seamless garment of Christ. The fea-st, with a vigil and an octave, was assigned to 2 July, the day after the octave of St. John, about the time when Mary returned to Nazareth. The Office was dr.awTi up by an Englishman, Adam Cardinal Etiston, Benctiictine monk and Bishop of Lincoln (Bridgett, "Our Lady's Dowry", 235). Dreves (.\nalecta HjTnnica, .vxiv, 89) has published this rhythmical office with nine other offices for the same fe.ost, found in the Breviaries of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. Since, during the Schism, many bishops of the opposing obedience would not adopt the new feast, it was confirmed by the Council of Basle, in 1441. Pius V abolished the rhythmical office, the vigil, and the octave. The present office was com- piled by order of Clement VIII by the Minorite Ruiz. Pius IX, on 13 May, 1850, raised the feast to the rank of a double of the second class. Many religious or- ders — the Carmelites, Dominicans, Cistercians, Mer- cedarians, Servites, and others — as well as Siena, Pisa, Loreto, Vercelli, Cologne, and other dioceses have retained the octave. In Bohemia the feast is kept on the first Sunday of July as a double of the first class with an octave.

HoLwEcK, FasH_ Mariani (Freiburg. 1892); Grotefend, Zeitrechnung (Leipzig, 1892). On the iconography of the event, see Gtr^NEBRAULT, Dirtionnaire ieonographique (Paris, 1850), 645; CoLEHiDOE, The Mother of the King (London, 1890).

Frederick G. Holweck.

Visitation Order — The nuns of the Visitation of Mar}', called also Filles de Sainte-Marie, Vi.sitan- dines, and Sale.sian Sisters, were founded in 1610 at Annecy in the Duchy of Savoy by St. Francis de Sales, Bishop of Geneva, and by St. Jane de Chantal. Their aim was to secure the benefit of the religious life for per-sons who had neither the physical strength nor the attraction for the corjJoral au.sterities at that time general in religious orders. St. Fr.ancis wished espe- cially to apply in souls of good will and in a perma- nent institution the spiritual method dear to him: to reach God chiefly through interior mortification and to endeavour to do in every action only the Divine Will with the greatest po.ssible love. The Visitation is therefore the principal work of St. Fnancis de Sales, the per])etu.ation of his doctrine and spirit, the living commentary on the "Introduction h, la vie devote" and the "Traite de I'amour de Dieu".

.'\t first the founder had not a religious order in mind; he wished to form a congregation without external vows, where the cloister should be observed only during the year of novit iate, after which the sis- ters should be free to go out by turns to visit the sick poor. This was why he called his institute the Visi- tation. This project was quite different from the iilea realized later by St. Vincent de Paul in the Sisters of (Charity, for what the bishop desired above all was the contemplative life; to this he added visitation of the sick, but merely by way of devotion. The under- taking was begun on Trinity Sunday, 6 June, 1610. The Baronne de Chantal, a widow, native of Bur- gundv, was de-stined to be the first supcriores,s. Marie- ■ XV.— 31

Jacqueline Favre, daughter of the Savoyard juris- consult Antoine Favre, and Mile Charlotte de Brech- ard, a Burgundian, accompanied the foundress as did also a servant, Anne-Jacqueline Coste, destined to be the first outdoor sister of the Visitation. After having received the bishop's blessing they assembled in thehouseof "la Galerie", still standing, in a suburb of Annecy. Trials, especially those arising from ridicule, were not wanting to the young congregation. People did not readily understand the mild and sim)ile rule of the new institute. Superficial observers did not take into account that the bishop was in his conductr and direction really the most mortified of all the saints. Nevertheless the novices arrived, and the names of two, Peronne-Marie de Chatel and Marie-Amee de Blonay, have remained noted in the history of the Visitation.

When the establishment was an accomplished fact (1615)Archbishopde Marquemontof Lyons undertook to persuade the founder to follow the common practice and erect his congregation into a religious order under the Rule of St. Augustine, with the cloister imposed by the Council of Trent. At first the saint resisted. It cost him much to abandon the sick poor and leave to his daughters only the apostolate of prayer and sacri- fice, but he eventually yielded. He then (1616) undertook the compilation of the "Constitutions pour les rehgieuses de la Visitation Sainte-Marie". The Church has thus characterized this work: "He had added to the Rule of St. Augustine constitutions which are admirable for wisdom, discretion, and sweetness" (Brev. Rom., 29 Jan., sixth lesson). At once the founder opened the door of the monastery to all of good will. No severity, however great, could prevent the weak and infirm from coming "there to seek the perfection of Divine love". He exjiressly ordered the reception at the Visitation not only of virgins but also of widows, on condition that they were legitimately freed from the care of their children; the aged, provided they were of right mind; the crippled, provided they were sound in mind and heart; even the sick, except those who had contagious diseases.

Austerities of the cloister, hke rising at night, sleeping on hard surfaces, were suppressed. Instead of chanting the canonical office in the middle of the night tfie sisters recited the Little Office of the Blessed Virgin at half-past eight in the evening. There was no perpetual abstinence nor prolonged fast. Besides the ordinary fast days of the Church, he retained only that on every Friday and certain vigils. CoriJoral mortifications properly so called were limited to the use of the discipline every Friday. But the wise legislator was careful to give to interior mortification what he withdrew from exterior morti- fication. His first concern was for poverty, which is nowhere so strict as in the Visitation, where every- thing is absolutely in common. No sister may " have as property anything however little, or under any pretext whatever". Not only the rooms and the beds, but medals, crosses, rosary beads, even pictures, are changed every year in order that the sisters may never come to consider them as their own. Next comes obedience. Whether general or particular it extends to every moment of the day, and the superior is to be obeyed as a mother, "carefully, faithfully, promptly, simply, frankly, and cordially". The nio.st trying mortification is perhaps that of the common life as understood by St. Francis de Sales. The day of the Visitandin(^ is divided from 5 a. m. until 10 p. m. into a multitude of short exercLses which keej) her occupied every inst.ant in duties determined by her rule. An hour of mental prayer in the morning and a half-hour in the evening. Mass, Office, spiritual readings, and examens of conscience succeed one another, and keep the religious in perpetual contem- plation. Silence, recollection, modesty of demeanour prepare for and facilitate prayer. Two recreations