Saint of the Day † (April 30) ✠ St. Marie of the Incarnation ✠

 † Saint of the Day †

(April 30)

✠ St. Marie of the Incarnation ✠

Missionary, Foundress of the Ursuline Order in Canada:

Born: Marie Guyart

October 28, 1599

Tours, Touraine, Kingdom of France

Died: April 30, 1672 (Aged 72)

Quebec City, Canada, New France

Venerated in:

Roman Catholic Church (Canada and the Ursulines) 

Anglican Church of Canada

Beatified: June 22, 1980

Pope John Paul II

Canonized: April 3, 2014

Pope Francis

Major shrine: Centre Marie-de-l’Incarnation, 10, rue Donnacona

Québec, Québec, Canada

Feast: April 30

Saint Marie of the Incarnation, O.S.U. was an Ursuline nun of the French order. As part of a group of nuns sent to New France to establish the Ursuline Order, Marie was crucial in the spread of Catholicism in New France. Moreover, she has been credited with founding the first girls’ school in the New World. She is a powerful example of trust in God. Due to her work, the Catholic Church declared her a saint, and the Anglican Church of Canada celebrates her with a feast day.

Marie was born in 1599, to a wealthy merchant family in France. She wanted to enter the religious life from a young age, but her family arranged a marriage for her with a wealthy silk merchant, Claude Martin. They had a son together, and Marie said they had a happy marriage, while it lasted. Claude died just a few months after their son was born, leaving Marie already a widow at nineteen.

Marie decided to pursue religious life now that she had the freedom of a widow. She took vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience and began to live as a sister. In 1627. Marie read Teresa of Avila's autobiography and was profoundly inspired by the great Spanish mystic. Marie longed to travel to the New World and spread the Christian faith there.

In 1631, Marie entered the Ursuline convent in Tours, leaving her young son in the care of family friends. The accounts of her young son crying outside the gates of the convent and attempting to storm the gates with a small band of school fellows are heart-wrenching. Marie and her son endured great sorrow at their separation, but they continued to correspond, even when Marie's son became a Benedictine monk.

In 1633, Marie had a vision of a band of sisters and herself walking through a distant landscape with the Virgin Mary, and she interpreted this as a sign that she should travel to New France as a missionary. Marie began a correspondence with Jesuit priests in Quebec. They wanted female religious to minister to the native women in Quebec.

Marie's family and religious community objected to her going, but Marie persisted. She found another young noblewoman with a missionary spirit, Madeleine de la Peltrie, and together, they worked tirelessly toward their goal, Madeleine even entered into a legal marriage with a wealthy nobleman to fund the venture. In 1639, Marie and Madeleine set sail for Quebec, accompanied by five other women and two Jesuit priests.

Marie founded the first Ursuline Monastery in Quebec, now a National Historic Site of Canada, in 1642. Marie spent the remainder of her life working to educate all the women—French and native Canadian—in Quebec. Marie was a prolific writer, penning over 20,000 letters in her lifetime. She wrote powerfully on trust in God's providence, which had worked such powerful good in her own life:

"If we could, with a single interior glance, see all the goodness and mercy that exists in God's designs for each one of us, even in what we call disgraces, pains, and afflictions, our happiness would consist in throwing ourselves into the arms of the Divine Will." 

Marie died on April 30, 1672, and was canonized by Pope Francis on April 2, 2014. A statue of Marie stands in front of the Quebec parliament.

St. Marie of the Incarnation, bold missionary who trusted deeply in God's plan—pray for us!