Live + Jesus

When writing a letter, e-mail, or even just a small note, St. Francis de Sales advised the sisters to begin with the phrase "Live + Jesus". This helps bring our minds, as well as the mind of our reciepient, back to our focus, Jesus.

God be Praised

Similarly, each message is ended with "God be Praised". This phrase is also used among the sisters, as we greet each other, transitioning from a period of silence to a period of talking.

The Order of the Visitation of Holy Mary was founded by St. Francis de Sales and St Jane de Chantal, under the inspirations of the Holy Spirit, “to give to God daughters of prayer, and souls so interior that they may be found worthy to serve His Infinite Majesty ‘and adore Him in spirit and in truth’”

Contemplatives in the Church trough their union with God and their form of community like, they seek within the seclusion of the cloister to develop the bond of charity in and among themselves. Let nothing separate them from the heavenly Spouse who has united them together, not from that union which can keep them united to Himself; so that having all but one heart and soul, He Himself may be their only soul and heart.

Thus, the sisters offer to God a sacrifice of praise; they share in the evangelization of the world by a hidden apostolic fruitfulness, giving genuine and humble witness to the fact that God is Love. At one with Christ’s response to His Father, their life tends to an ever deeper communion with the Father, through the Son, in the Spirit.

In order to be faithful to their own vocation, the sisters strive to live the Gospel in accordance with the spirit of their 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 having to make up for this by interior renunciation, great simplicity, and joy in the common life.

The order honors the Virgin Mary in her mystery of the Visitation. The sisters share in the freedom of her response, the wonder of her praise, in her zeal for the world’s salvation.

“Our little congregation is really the work of the hearts of Jesus and Mary. Our dying Savior gave birth to us from the wound in His Sacred Heart.” (St. Francis de Sales)

*The above citations are from The Holy Constitutions of the Order of the Visitation of Holy Mary