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 those saints who are canonized
by Pope John Paul II. 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 they invite
us to follow their paths to holiness. Their unique stories inspire us to be rooted
in our faith. God calls each one of us to be a saint. Today we listen to the heroic
life of Saint Claudine Thévenet, virgin, and Foundress of the Congregation of the
Religious of Jesus and Mary. She was canonized on 21 March 1993. Her life and her
deeds remain for all a window to God Himself even today. Listen: Claudine
Thèvenet was born in Lyon, France, on 30th March 1774. She was the second
of a family of seven children. ‘Glady’ as she was affectionately known had a strong
influence on her brothers and sisters, thanks to her goodness, gentleness and self-forgetfulness
in the desire to make others happy. The French Revolution broke out when she was
fifteen. In 1793, she experienced the tragic hours of the siege of Lyons by the government
army and she witnessed the execution in revenge of her two brothers after the city
fell in January 1794. Their last words, "Forgive, Glady, as we forgive" remained deep
in her heart and her mind and were to change the course of her life. From now
onwards Claudine would dedicate herself to the relief of the great suffering caused
by the Revolution. For her a main source of distress was the people's ignorance of
God and thus was born in her the great desire to make Him known to everyone. But it
was to be the children and the young people who would be the main object of her zeal
and her desire to make Jesus and Mary known and loved. xxx Claudine’s
encounter with a holy priest, Father Andre Coindre, would help her to discover more
clearly what God was asking of her and would be decisive in the orientation of her
life. When Father Coindre found two little shivering children abandoned on the steps
of the church of St. Nizier, he took them to Claudine who did not hesitate to take
them into her care. Her compassion and love for destitute children is, therefore,
at the origin of the "Providence" of St. Bruno in Lyon (1815). Companions soon joined
Claudine and they formed an association, the Association of the Sacred Heart of which
Claudine was immediately elected president. On July 31st 1818, the call
of the Lord was heard through the voice of Father Coindre who told some members of
the Association to form a community without hesitation. "God has chosen you",
he said to Claudine. And so the foundation of the Congregation of the Religious of
Jesus and Mary at Pierres Plantees on the hill of the Croix Rousse took place on 6th
October 1818. In 1820 the new Congregation moved to Fourviere, in front of the famous
shrine, to some land bought from the Jaricot family where it received canonical approval
from the Diocese of Puy in 1823 and that of Lyon in 1825. xxx The first
aim of the young Institute had been to receive poor children and care for them until
they were twenty, giving them working skills and elementary education, as well as
a solid religious and moral formation. But Claudine and her sisters wanted to do more
and so with the foundation of a boarding school their hearts and their arms were opened
to young girls of richer families. The apostolic aim of the Congregation was therefore
the Christian education of all social classes, with a preference for children and
young girls and among them the poor. These two activities developed simultaneously
in spite of the difficulties that the Foundress was to encounter during the last twelve
years of her life: the suffering caused by the deaths of Father Coindre in 1826 and
the first sisters two years later in 1828; the struggle to prevent the fusion of her
Congregation with another; the revolutionary upheavals of Lyon in 1831 and 1834, with
all their consequences for those who lived on the hill of Fourviere, forming, as it
did, a strategic area between the two warring parties. However, the undaunted courage
of Claudine was never to be overcome by adversity; she bravely undertook new constructions,
including that of the chapel of the Mother House, and at the same time, with great
care and dedication, began to draw up the Constitutions of the Congregation. She was
about to complete this when death overtook her on 3rd February 1837 at
the age of just sixty three. Xxx "To do everything in order to please
God" seems to have been the goal of her life. This constant search for God's will
in order "to a lead a life worthy of Him and to please Him in everything" was to give
her that deep spiritual insight which would enable her to read the signs of the times
and there discern God's plan, in order to give a full and complete response to His
call; such was the life which was to make her worthy "to join the saints and with
them to inherit the light". "To see God in all things and all things in God" is
also to live in a spirit of constant praise. In a world in which hope is all too often
in short supply, the rediscovery of God's goodness, both in His creation and in people,
restores purpose to life and leads to thanksgiving. Claudine made of her religious
and apostolic life an act of praise of God's glory; her last words "How good God is"
expressed her conviction that God is good, something that she had come to know, even
in the most painful moments of her life. Her Congregation was to be profoundly
influenced by her strong personality. Gifted with an unusual ‘force dame’, intelligent,
and a perfect organizer. Above all, she was kind-hearted and wanted her daughters
to be true mothers to the children confided to their care: "Be mothers to these children",
she would say, "yes, true mothers of both body and soul". She would tolerate no preferences,
no partialities: "The only preferences I will permit are for the most poor, the most
miserable, those who have most defects; those you will love a great deal". The
strength of a building is revealed only with the passage of time. Barely five years
after the death of Mother Claudine, her daughters set out for India in 1842. In 1850,
they opened their first house in Spain and in 1855, they established themselves in
the New World, in Canada. One hundred and seventy five years after the foundation
of the Congregation, there are now more than 1800 religious of Jesus and Mary in 180
communities across the five continents. With joy and gratitude, they follow the footsteps
of the humble and generous daughter of France whom the Lord chose to be their Foundress. xxxYou
have been listening to INSPIRING LIVES, a weekly series based on the lives of Catholic
Saints from around the world, brought to you by Vatican Radio’s English Service for
South Asia. By P.J. Joseph SJ FRIDAY, 27 DECEMBER 2013