How Mary taught Princess Joan of France

Saint Joan of France (1464-1505) was the daughter of King Louis XI and Queen Charlotte of Savoy. At the age of twelve, she was given in marriage to Duke Louis d'Orléans, who never accepted this imposed union. When he ascended the throne of France in 1498 as King Louis XII, he asked Rome to declare their marriage null. 

Freed from her marital duties, Joan founded the Sisters of the Annunciation or Annonciades in Bourges. During apparitions, the Virgin Mary taught her three things that would lead her to God's good pleasure and union with Christ: listening to the Word of God, meditating on Christ's Passion, and loving the Eucharist. 

Joan's confessor reports that the Virgin also asked her to be a peacemaker where she lived; to be her advocate in her conversations and words; to seek to establish peace between all those in whose midst she lived; to speak nothing but words of peace, concerned for the salvation of souls; to not listen to slanderous words; to always forgive, and to always excuse. To do this is a way of life.

Sister Marie-Emmanuel

Annonciade Monastery