Visitation Nuns’ Video Celebrates 400th Anniversary Pilgrimage to France

March 12, 2012 - PRLog -- Revolutions come and go, and today’s social milieu will change with the wind, but for four hundred years a group of nuns have born witness to the merciful heart of Jesus through their lives of gentleness and humility.

The Order of the Visitation of Holy Mary, founded in 1610 in France, has grown to a worldwide congregation of active and cloistered sisters, and today they can be found in nearly every country. The cloistered Visitation nuns from Toledo, OH recently made a pilgrimage to Annecy, France, where the congregation was founded, to celebrate the 400th anniversary of their founding.

A new video made for the occasion captures the spirit of the Order and chronicles the happy excursions of the sisters in the area once walked by their founders, St. Francis de Sales and St. Jane de Chantal. The video opens with a beautiful panorama of the valley surrounding Annecy, with the magnificent Visitation Basilica perched in the hills, watching over, as it were, the city below.

Delighted to See the Nuns

“We walked everywhere,” the video relates. “Going to the basilica was always ‘up’ and a steep climb. It allowed us to meet the people who seem delighted to see this large group of nuns, and were all smiles. It was a mixture of languages, but that did not hinder conversation, as we could speak ‘heart to heart.’”

The video features the travels of the sisters that includes the fortress of Les Allinges, from which Saint Francis de Sales began the re-evangelization of the Chablais; the Chateau de Sales in Thorens, the birthplace of Saint Francis; the burial place of St. Jane; and the crypt of the basilica, in which are displayed artifacts that survived the French Revolution.

The video, which has been viewed nearly 3,000 times in less than two months, also features their travels to the Monastery of Paray-le-monial, where the Sacred Heart appeared to their sister, Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque.

Join the sisters as they journey the next 400 years as they walk in the footsteps of St. Francis de Sales and St. Jane Frances de Chantal. Go to the Visitation Sisters’ website and see the 400th anniversary video at http://www.toledovisitation.org/anniversary.htm.

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The Sisters of the Visitation of Toledo, OH are a cloistered community in the Catholic Church. The Order honors the Virgin Mary in her mystery of the Visitation.