GOJÓZ, JEANNE-BÉNIGNE. - Mystic, born at Vieux, near Champagne (Ain), on 20 July 1615, died at Turin on 5 November 1692. At the age of 20 she entered the first monastery of the Visitation of St Mary at Annecy. Chosen by the foundress, St Jeanne Françoise de Chantal, she went with her to Turin in 1638 to found a monastery there, through which the Congregation of the Visitandines made its entry into Italy.
The place of her burial is unknown; searches made after the French Revolution and more recently have proved fruitless. She was favoured with the highest gifts of prayer. Among them are clearly recognisable: contemplation, the dry mystical union and ecstatic union, the reparative life and transforming union. During her life, which was most edifying and of recognised virtue, she had, according to her own testimony, frequent communications from God, the content of which, concerning “the charm of Divine Love”, instructions on the Mysteries, on Grace and on the exercise of the virtues, G. entrusted to writing (loose sheets, manuscripts, preserved at the Visitation in Turin) or confided orally to Mother Maria Elisabetta Geltrude of Provana of Leyni.