I have always been fascinated by this story. The article entitled Plain Jane was written by a Catholic priest in 1994 and appeared in Homiletic and Pastoral Review, a respectable quarterly for Catholic priests and others so interested. I believe the message of Jane and her life is relevant for us today. It is an amazing story you have to read to believe.
Here is his Story.
It was a cold wintry day in January 1992. Ten inches of snow had fallen in our area. Because of the weather, I did not expect any visitors ringing the rectory doorbell. So I was somewhat surprised when the doorbell did ring that memorable day. Standing outside on the front steps of the rectory was a young lady who introduced herself immediately. “My name is Jane,” Father. “Everybody just calls me plain Jane.” “I would like to talk to you,” she said.
As soon as she was seated Jane declared “since you haven’t been in this parish very long you probably did not recognize me but I come to Mass every Sunday morning,” she explained. “I live with my mother in Lost Forest quite a few miles from Dakota, MN. My mother is a widow. We manage to survive by raising a few animals, cultivating a garden, and selling apples from our orchard. Father, I read your story about My Lady, the famous llama of Lost Forest. She is one of my friends. I have also befriended Samantha the cougar who roams the area adjacent to our house. You may wonder why people call me plain Jane. I was not attractive as a child. For that reason my classmates often teased me about my appearance. If it were not for my mother’s assurance that I would become a beautiful lady someday, I would have left school and never returned.” While she was talking I did notice that she had blossomed into a very lovely lady.
Father, she continued, “I am troubled and I don’t know where to begin because you may not believe what I am going to say. Perhaps you will think that I am emotionally unstable and that I imagine things. A few months ago I began to hear voices similar to those heard by Saint Joan of Arc. Sometimes those voices were accompanied by visions. The voices have revealed rather startling and prophetic messages. For example, they’ve told me that certain people were going to die in our community. The voices not only described the manner in which some of these people would die but also the exact date of their death. I was reluctant to believe what I was hearing. I thought that I was dreaming and everything I heard would be forgotten. I was mistaken. As weeks elapsed, the predictions came true and people died exactly as the voices had predicted. I became frightened and felt that I ought to share those experiences with my mother. She was not surprised at all to hear about the voices. She did cautione me, however, not to mention these experiences to other people, lest they ridicule me and recommend that I be confined to a psychiatric ward. My mother also suggested that I ought to visit you and discuss this matter. What should I do Father?”
We priest have been trained to be gullible and certainly not to be cynical. So I began to question her in more detail about her visions and voices. Jane answered all of my questions in a very direct manner. She was most sincere in her responses. To confirm the veracity of her statements Jane surprised me when she said I can prove that what I am saying is true. “In fact I believe you’ll find my story credible when I reveal to you the winning numbers of the State lottery which will be announced next Saturday night on television. The winning numbers for the $47 million jackpot will be 6-19-33-41-48-45. Of course, Father, that information is a privilege and part of the seal. It means you will not be able to buy a ticket and use those particular numbers for your benefit or the benefit of the parishes.”
If I were inclined to believe her story about the voices I certainly did not think that the Lord or any spiritual being would become involved in the multi-million dollar lottery. Interrupting my thoughts Jane excused herself and said that she would return the following week to continue our discussion of what she had shared with me. She needed a confidant because she could not bear the burden of keeping everything to herself. For the remainder of the week I was distracted by other events which demanded my attention. Consequently I forgot about the winning numbers for the Illinois lottery.
While watching the 9 o’clock news on Saturday night the program was interrupted momentarily to announce the winning lottery numbers. Slowly they called out the numbers. 6: this was the first number revealed by Jane and it was probably a lucky guess. 19: I still wasn’t impressed, very likely it was a coincidence that Jane’s first two numbers were correct. 33: this was another correct number disclosed by Jane. I began to question why she would be given such information and not permitted to utilize it for herself or for the benefit of others. 41: I thought that I was dreaming, thus far every one of Jane’s numbers was correct. 48: if I had any doubts about the voices heard by Jane, those doubts were now dispeled. She had certainly not imagined hearing such voices. They were as real as the lottery numbers announced on television. 45: the chances of selecting six correct numbers in the lottery was one and 12 million. Jane had defied those odds. She knew with certitude that her information could not be false because it came from sources beyond the realm of human experience. For several minutes I remained in a trance before I began to realize the implication of Jane’s prophetic words.
I have often read about people who have the special gift of prophecy from the Holy Spirit but I never expected to meet someone in Minnesota with such extraordinary powers. I wondered how Jane was able to hear those prophetic messages and still remain silent when the messages came true. Can you imagine how you would feel if it were revealed to you that a person would die and precisely when that person would die. Suppose that before 13-year-old Jason of Minnesota had died in an accident last year on the 15th of August, you knew in advance when he would die and in what manner he would die. If you were warned not to divulge that information, would you have the strength to remain silent? Jane was confronted with that dilemma several times and did not falter.
The young prophetess of Lost Forest did return a week later. I no longer hesitated to believe her messages. Again she revealed to me some very dire predictions about the future of our world. It was distressing to listen to her words. When Jane began to talk to me about her spiritual life I learned that she was a very special soul who had cultivated the life of prayer from the time she had been five years old. She told me that she spent many hours every day making acts of love to God. I will never be able to love God as much as he wants me to love him. So I simply asked the Lord to show me how to increase my love for him. I also asked Jesus to come into my soul and permeate the entire fiber of my being so that every breath I take every beat of my heart every thought I entertain and every image I have in my imagination and every word I utter and every moment of my body will be offered to him as an act of love, she confided.
“Father, there are so many people in the world today who do not love God. Some, I am convinced, hate and despise him. Therefore I ask God to help me make up for that lack of love by loving him more and more each day. Perhaps this sounds strange,” continued Jane as she described her prayer life to me. I ask God to help me love him so much that my soul can no longer endure to be separated from him. I yearn to become a bride of Christ so that I may enjoy for all eternity the most intimate union that a soul can experience living with God. I sometimes am given a foretaste of that happiness when God reveals himself to me. The ecstasy and the intense joy that fill my soul are indescribable. I believe that is how every soul will feel when it beholds the Beatific Vision and sees God face-to-face. There is no joy in this world comparable to such an intense experience. Her face was a glow as she spoke.
I could relate to such experiences because I was aware in my study of mystical theology that some saints love God so much that their souls could no longer be contained in their bodies. For example Saint Philip Neri’s heart literally burst with love and some of his ribs were fractured when he died. St. Philip loved God so much that his soul could not bear to be separated from him. Likewise, Saint Francis Xavier experienced such deeply felt delight from loving God that he could hardly endure such emotion in his human body for a prolonged duration of time. I also recall that whenever St. Alphonsus Liguori was given a vision of heaven, his heart and soul were so filled with joy that he begged God to terminate his ecstasy because his body could not sustain such intense feelings. I have meant a godly number of people in my ministry whose love for God was extraordinary. But Jane is the first person I have ever met who radiated that special love of God by the thoughts she shared with me, by her words and by her behavior. Now I understand why God had favored her with so many special locutions and visions.
Before Jane left the rectory to return to home in Lake Forest, she asked to see me periodically and talk about her spiritual experiences. I gladly agreed to her request. Approximately a week later I received an emergency telephone call at midnight. “Father I am Jane’s mother, please come to administer the last sacraments to my daughter. Jane is dying. She cried. I assured Mary that I would come as soon as possible. Only the mother greeted me when I arrived at the family farm house. She quickly ushered me to Jane’s bedroom. After giving the young lady Holy Viaticum and then anointing her I noticed the radiant smile on her face. She glowed with holiness. The beauty of that radiance was mesmerizing. Never before had I experienced God‘s presence as I felt it at that moment. J ane tried to speak to me. However all I could hear her say were the words, “Jesus I love you I want to be with you for all eternity.” Then she expired. The smile remained on her face. Both Mary and I were deeply moved by what we had witnessed.
Turning to me Mary declared “I have never seen anyone happier than my Jane. God seemed to be with her at every moment of her life. I felt the divine presence whenever she was near me.” “Oh Lord” this mother cried in agony. “I am going to miss her. I don’t know how I will be able to live without her.”
The doctors who examined Jane’s body after her death were mystified. Because she had been in excellent health no one expected her to die. Following an autopsy, one of the doctors mentioned that he found only one organ which seemed abnormal. Jane’s heart, he said, had ruptured. So far as Mary and I were concerned, there was no need to offer any other evidence to account for Jane’s death. We knew she had died from the love of God.
On the third day following Jane’s departure from this world, I celebrated her funeral Mass at Holy Cross Church. Every person who knew this loving person attended that Mass. In the course of my homily, I proposed to the congregation that Jane ought to become a model for all of us. We should aspire to love God so much that we will no longer be able to endure separation from him. In other words we too will be able to die on account of our love for God. I did mention that some people may object to that proposal by saying, “oh but I am too unworthy to die such a noble death.” Of course, all of us are unworthy. “Even if we fall short of attaining that goal, I added, we will advance much further in the spiritual life and achieve more intimacy with God than we ever dreamed possible.”
After we laid Jane’s mortal remains to rest in our parish cemetery, many people approached me. Some said “she touched so many lives.” Others remarked, “never again will refer to her as plain Jane. She was truly Saint Jane.” The people of the parish will never forget Jane as long as they live. Everyone agreed that we had a saint in our midst and did not really appreciate her presence until she had died. Jane will continue to be an inspiration for all of us to live a better life and to strive to love God as much as she loved him.
Fr. J Frisch