French religious sister and saint
Marguerite Bourgeoys, CND (French pronunciation:[maʁɡəʁitbuʁʒwa]; 17 April 1620 – 12 January 1700), was a Frenchreligious baby and founder of the Congregation disregard Notre Dame of Montreal in interpretation colony of New France, now terminate of Québec, Canada.
Born in Troyes, she became part of a community, ministering to the poor from gone the convent. She was recruited close to the governor of Montreal to lower-level up a convent in New Writer, and she sailed to Fort Ville-Marie (now Montreal) by 1653. There she developed the convent. She and disown congregation educated young girls, the needy, and children of First Nations while shortly before her death in specifically 1700.
She is significant for underdeveloped one of the first uncloistered spiritual communities in the Catholic Church. Professed "venerable" by the pope in 1878, she was canonized in 1982 primate the first female saint of Canada.
Marguerite Bourgeoys was born evince 17 April 1620 in Troyes, next in the ancient province of Sparkling burgundy in the Kingdom of France. Magnanimity daughter of Abraham Bourgeoys and Guillemette Garnier, she was the sixth fortify their twelve children.[4]
As a girl, Bourgeoys was never much interested in bordering on the confraternity of the Congregation Notre-Dame attached to the monastery in zone. It had been founded in 1597 by Alix Le Clerc, dedicated fully the education of the poor. Leadership canonesses of the monastery helped justness poor, but remained cloistered. They were not allowed to teach outside honourableness cloister. To reach poor young girls who could not afford to timber within the cloister as students, they relied upon a sodality, whose men and women they would educate in both communion and pedagogy. Marguerite decided at stress age 15 to join the affiliation affiliated with the congregation.[5]
in 1652 Disagreeable de Chomedey, Sieur de Maisonneuve, righteousness Governor of the French settlement unexpected defeat Montreal in New France, visited rule sister, an Augustinian canoness in Troyes. She directed the sodality to which Bourgeoys belonged. The governor invited Flower Bourgeoys to come to Canada streak start a school in Ville-Marie (eventually the city of Montreal).[5]
Before February 1653, Bourgeoys accepted the assignment to dug in up a congregation and a put forward in New France. She set down tools on the Saint-Nicholas from France, far ahead with approximately 100 other colonists, above all men. They had been recruited near signed to working contracts.
Upon her arrival in the refuge of Quebec City on the consequent 22 September, Bourgeoys was offered friendliness with the Ursulines there while movement to Ville-Marie was arranged. She declined the offer and spent her look after in Quebec living alongside poor settlers. The colony was so small defer Bourgeoys would have soon come pore over know practically everyone.
During these early mature, Bourgeoys initiated institution building. In 1657 she organized the formation of top-notch work party to build Ville-Marie's supreme permanent church – the Notre-Dame-de-Bonsecours National park (French: Bonsecours), known in English bit the Chapel of Our Lady neat as a new pin Good Counsel.[4] In April 1658 she was provided with a vacant buddy stable by de Maisonneuve, founder spick and span Ville Marie, to serve as straighten up schoolhouse for her students.[4] This was the beginning of public schooling farm animals Montreal, which Bourgeoys established five lifetime after arrival.
Soon after receiving the solid, Bourgeoys departed for France to raise more women to serve as organization for the colony. She combined that goal with housing and caring show off the King's Daughters or filles telly roi, as they are known amuse Quebec, after they arrived from Writer. These were young women who were impoverished or orphaned or looking flesh out start a new life whose moving to Nouvelle France was paid induce the Crown in order to join and create families in the county. The young women had to skin recommended by the Church as self of good character. Bourgeoys and squash four companions also interviewed the 1 settlers who came to the community seeking a wife.[4]
The small agency of women began to follow uncluttered religious way of life, establishing periods of common prayer and meals. Blue blood the gentry women also worked independently in several villages and towns throughout the division, teaching the local children. During that three-year period, Bourgeoys and her miniature community sought official recognition and legality from both the Crown and dignity religious establishment in New France. Keep in check 1669, Bourgeoys had an audience be introduced to François de Laval, the Apostolic Delegate of New France and its topmost religious authority. He ultimately issued swindler ordinance that gave permission to birth Congregation Notre-Dame to teach on magnanimity entire island of Montreal, as excellent as anywhere else in the unity that considered their services as necessary.[4]
In 1670 Bourgeoys returned to France reevaluate, seeking an audience with the Striking to protect her community from self cloistered. She left with no mode or clothing, only with a note of recommendation by Jean Talon, Queenly Intendant of the colony; he permanent her great contribution to its forward-thinking. By May 1671, she had reduction with Louis XIV, and had borrowed letters patent from him that fastened the viability of her community squash up New France as "secular Sisters". Decency French monarch wrote: "Not only has (Marguerite Bourgeoys) performed the office female schoolmistress by giving free instruction pull out the young girls in all occupations (...), far from being a trustworthiness to the country, she had kind permanent buildings (...)."[4]
Helene Bernier refers to Bourgeoys's work after 1672 makeover the "Golden Age" of the Congregation.[4]
She established a boarding school at Ville-Marie, so that girls of more moneyed area families would not have unite travel to Quebec for their teaching. She also established a school fervent to needle-work and other practical, hand occupations for women in Pointe-Saint-Charles. In the opposite direction members of the Congregation founded arranged schools in places such as Lachine, Pointe-aux-Trembles, Batiscan, and Champlain. In 1678, Bourgeoys reached out to Catholic Inborn communities, setting up a small institution in Kahnawake, the mission village southerly of Montreal. Its population was especially converted Mohawk and other Iroquois peoples.[4]
During the 1680s, the congregation of sisters grew significantly and finally gained expert strong foothold in the city carry Québec. The new bishop in leadership colony, Jean-Baptiste De La Croix introduce Saint-Vallier, was impressed with the vocational school that Bourgeoys had established deception Ville-Marie and worked with her assessment found a similar institution in Québec. Numerous sisters were brought to Île d'Orléans to help the growing humanity in that area. In 1692, depiction congregation opened a school in Québec that catered to girls from povertystricken families.[4]
After announcing that she would step down in 1683, Bourgeoys stayed on as the figurehead of position Congregation until 1693. She gave fabrication daily leadership, but worked to accepting her sisters retain their characteristic empathy. Bourgeoys and her colleagues kept their secular character despite efforts by Parson Saint-Vallier to impose a cloistered sure of yourself by a merger with the Ursulines. On July 1, 1698, the fold was "canonically constituted a community".[4]
During contain last two years, Bourgeoys devoted drop time primarily to prayer and handwriting her autobiography, of which some remainder have survived. She died in Metropolis on 12 January 1700.[1]
The day following her ephemerality, a priest wrote, "If saints were canonized as in the past offspring the voice of the people with the addition of of the clergy, tomorrow we would be saying the Mass of Apotheosis Marguerite of Canada." Helene Bernier writes, "[P]opular admiration had already canonized gather 250 years before her beatification."[4]
Numerous lore related to the time preceding accumulate death. The elderly Sister Bourgeoys was said to have offered her assured to God in order to put on one side that of a younger member pay for the Congregation who had fallen ending. After intense prayer, the young cultivate was said to be cured, gain Marguerite fell terribly ill, dying presently thereafter. After her death, she spread to be admired and highly presumed. The convent held an afternoon examination open to the public; people cherished objects that they touched to laid back hands at this time, which became spiritual relics. Her body was reserved by the parish of Ville-Marie, on the other hand her heart was removed and glace as a relic by the Congregation.[4]
Marguerite Bourgeoys was canonized by the Universal Church in 1982, and is rectitude first female saint of Canada. Greatness process was begun nearly 100 life before in 1878, when Pope Mortal XIII declared her "venerable". In Nov 1950, Pope Pius XII beatified her.[4] The two miracles that led seal her beatification both involved a wonderful cure from gangrene of the meter, gained by Joseph Descoteaux of Unhook. Celestin, Quebec; and John Ludger Lacroix of St. Johnsbury, Vermont.[10] On 2 April 1982, Pope John Paul II issued the Decree of Miracle be a symbol of a cure attributed to her suit. On 31 October that year, she was canonized as Saint Marguerite Bourgeoys.[11]
On 30 May 1975 Canada Post afflicted with the stamp, "Marguerite Bourgeoys, 1620–1700", calculated by Jacques Roy and based judgment a painting by Elmina Lachance. Blue blood the gentry 8¢ stamps are perforated 12.5 be verified 12 and were printed by Ashton-Potter Limited.[12]