2012-05-14 10:35:39

St. Marguerite Bourgeoys


Welcome to INSPIRING LIVES, a series on the lives of Saints in the catholic church from around the world.
In this series we bring you alive the heroic lives lived by the saints. Saints are holy people who lived ordinary lives in extraordinary ways. Each saint the Church honors responded to God's invitation to use his or her unique gifts. These saints are examples of great holiness and virtue, and thereby inspires others to do so. Their stories are unique, which inspire and invite us to be rooted in our faith. God calls each one of us to be a saint.
In this series we bring you those saints who are canonized by the Pope John Paul II.
Last week we listened to the fascinating story of Saint Maximilian Kolbe, who was canonized on 10th October 1982 in Rome. His holiness was a limitless, passionate desire to convert the whole world to God. And his beloved Blessed Virgin was his inspiration. In December of 1940, he wrote: The real conflict is inner conflict. Beyond armies of occupation and the catacombs of concentration camps, there are two irreconcilable enemies in the depth of every soul: good and evil, sin and love. And what use are victories on the battle-field if we ourselves are defeated in our innermost personal selves?
He laid down his life taking the place of a fellow prisoner in the concentration camp of Nazis in 1941.
Today we shall listen to the heroic life of Saint Marguerite Bourgeoys (1620-1700). She was canonized on 31st October 1982 in Rome, and became the first woman saint in the Canadian Church.
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“All I have ever desired most deeply and what I still most ardently wish is that the great precept of the love of God above all things and of the neighbour as oneself be written in every heart.” So wrote Marguerite Bourgeoys, who left the security of a 17th century French bourgeoisie life to serve the early pioneers in New France. She assisted in bringing the gospel to the local people, established schools, taught vocational and domestic skills to women, helped the poor, and founded the Congrégation de Notre-Dame de Montréal. Children from European as well as Native American backgrounds in the 17th century Canada benefited from her great zeal and unshakable trust in God’s providence.

Marguerite was born the sixth of 12 children in the city of Troyes, the ancient capital of the province of Champagne, in France, on Good Friday 1620. The same day she was baptized in the parish church, Saint-Jean. Her father was a master candle maker and an official in the city mint, giving the family a respected position in the community.

Marguerite was 19 years of age when she lost her mother. The following year, 1640, in the course of a procession held on 7th October, in honor of Our Lady of the Rosary, she had an unforgettable experience. Her eyes rested on a statue of the Blessed Virgin, and at that moment she felt inspired to withdraw from the world and to consecrate herself to the service of God. With that unchanging fidelity to what she believed to be God's will for her, she set about to discern her specific vocation. Late in life, she wrote about that experience: “I gave myself to God in 1640.”
Marguerite believed that she was called to religious life. But her applications to the Carmelites and Poor Clares were unsuccessful. A priest friend then suggested that perhaps God had other plans for her. Later she became a member of the extern Congregation of Troyes, an association of young girls devoted to the charitable work of teaching children in the poor districts of the town. While engaged in this apostolate she sensed a first call to missionary life. The year was 1642. Her call was rendered concrete in 1652 when she met Monsieur de Maisonneuve, founder and governor of the settlement begun in New France. He was in search of someone who would volunteer her services for the gratuitous instruction of the French and Indian children.
xxx The governor invited Marguerite to come to Canada and start a school in Ville-Marie (eventually the city of Montreal). Marguerite accepted the invitation and left Troyes in February 1653, after giving away all of her parents' inheritance to other members of the family. The decision to go to Montreal was not easy for Marguerite. It meant leaving the poor of Troyes, and it also seemed to mean abandoning the idea of a community dedicated to honouring the life of Mary, the mother of Jesus. When she arrived in Montreal on the following November, the colony numbered 200 people with a hospital and a Jesuit mission chapel.
In order to encourage the colonists in their faith expression, Marguerite arranged for the restoration of the Cross on Mount Royal which had been destroyed by hostile Indians. She also constructed a chapel to honor Our Lady of Good Help. Convinced of the importance of the family in the building of this new country, and perceiving the significance of the role of women, she devoted herself to the task of preparing them whose vocation it would be to preside in a home.

In 1658, she opened the first school in Montreal in a stable which had been given to her by the governor. Soon after starting the school, she realized her need for coworkers. In 1659 she returned to France to recruit more teachers. She returned with four; in 1670, a second trip to France resulted in six more young women and a letter from King Louis XIV, authorizing the school. These courageous women became the first sisters of the Congregation of Notre Dame. Thus were initiated a school system and a network of social services which gradually extended through the whole country, and which led people to refer to Marguerite as "Mother of the Colony".
xxx In 1658, the group of teachers who associated themselves with Marguerite in her life of prayer, of heroic poverty, and of untiring devotedness to the service of others, presented the image of a religious institute. The group was inspired by Our Lady of Voyages, and desired to remain uncloistered, the concept of an uncloistered community being an innovation at that time. Such a foundation occasioned much suffering and the one who took the initiative was not spared. But the work progressed.
The Congregation de Notre-Dame received its civil charter from Louis XIV in 1671, and canonical approbation by decree of the Bishop of Quebec in 1676. In 1693, an aging Marguerite resigned as the superior of the Congrégation de Notre-Dame de Montréal. But she lived long enough to see, in 1698, it’s Rule of Life approved, permitting the sisters to pronounce their vows publicly for the first time.
Thus the foundation having been assured, Sister Marguerite died in Montreal on January 12, 1700, acknowledged for her holiness of life. But, it was her death that served Christ more than anything. It was her death that fulfilled Our Lord's Commandment: "Love your neighbor as yourself". On the last day of 1699, St. Marguerite Bourgeoys saw one of the sisters of her religious order dying. She begged the Lord for the sister to be well and for her to take on the illness. It was the next morning (Jan 1, 1700) that the sister became miraculously well, and St. Marguerite Bourgeois was very ill. Twelve days later, St. Marguerite died.

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It’s easy to become discouraged when plans that we think that God must endorse are frustrated. Marguerite was called not to be a cloistered nun but to be a foundress and an educator. God had not ignored her after all.

In his homily at her canonization, Pope John Paul II said, “ she contributed to building up that new country, realizing the determining role of women, and she diligently strove toward their formation in a deeply Christian spirit.”
A local clergyman wrote about her funeral to a friend: “Never were there so many … as there were this morning at the funeral of this holy woman. If the saints were canonized today as they were in olden times, tomorrow we would be saying the mass of Saint Marguerite of Canada.”P.J. Joseph SJ








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