Guyon Mme Jeanne
break out your badges for
MME
JEANNE
GUYON
16.4.1648 – 9.6.1717
Born into a family of French aristocrats, she attained her title through marriage and enjoyed the high living of Parisian society, but she could not escape the sense of God’s call on her life and in her widowhood became a self-appointed evangelist going from village to village challenging people to faith in Christ. She ran foul of the church authorities however because they insisted that it was the business of the priests only to pray and preach. Her book Experiencing the Depths of Jesus Christ at one time was publicly burned in France.
She sought meaning and reality in self-denial, quietness and meditation before God and with others in France became known as ‘Quietists.’ We would better know them as ‘ascetics’ or ‘mystics.’
She wrote this song from solitary confinement
A little bird I am, My cage confines me round;
Shut from the fields of air; Abroad I cannot fly;
Yet in my cage I sit and sing But though my wing is closely bound,
To Him who placed me there; My heart’s at liberty.
Well pleased a prisoner to be, My prison walls cannot control
Because, my God, it pleases Thee. The flight, the freedom, of the soul.
Nought have I else to do; Ah! it is good to soar
I sing the whole day long; These bolts and bars above,
And He whom most I love to please, To Him whose purpose I adore,
Doth listen to my song; Whose Providence I love;
He caught and bound my wandering wing And in Thy mighty will to find
But still He bends to hear me sing. The joy, the freedom, of the mind.
Source: Experiencing the Depths of Jesus Christ Mme Jeanne Guyon