Blessed Marie Poussepin, January 24

Blessed Marie Poussepin

Dourdan, 1653 – Sainville, 1744

Born in Dourdan (Essonne) from a family deeply committed Christian and works of charity, following the failure of her father, she courageously took over the father’s factory, transforming it into a pilot plant, aimed more at social good than profit. In 1691 she entered the Dominican Third Order, which appreciated her spirit of contemplation and apostolic purpose. Realizing that God and Saint Dominic called her to a different lifestyle, she left the factory with her brother and moved to Jainville, where poverty and ignorance were higher. Here she founded a community-type female Dominican Order, not cloistered and open to works of charity: the Dominican Sisters of Charity of the presentation of the s. Virgin.

Roman Martyrology: In the village of Sainville near Chartres in France, Poussepin Mary, virgin, who founded the Institute of the Dominican Sisters of Charity of the Presentation of the Holy Virgin to offer support to the pastors of souls, education for girls and assistance to the needy and the sick.

All the work of this woman is proclaimed by the words engraved on the tomb inscription: “She saw and did what was good before the Lord Watch and pray, the enemy so do not spread the weeds in his house.” Charity and prudence, virtue queens among the theological and moral, were bearing the coordinates of her life. She said “humble daughter of Providence.” At Dourdan, her hometown, in the first half of her years was Checkers, say today, of Charity of St. Vincent of Paul. She was a skillful executive at he father’s factory of socks, from the manufacturing raised at the technical level,to recognizing the social rights of apprentices. In 1696 she moved to Sainville. She became a Dominican tertiary and led by Father Francis Mespolié, Convent of the Annunciation in Paris, she devoted her great heart and financial fortune to good Christian and social integration of rural populations, setting up in small countries, lacking until then, schools and primary education catechetics and nursing centers. Sos he went to the meeting of King Louis XIV to reorganize the school system and hospital in France. The radius of her charities continued through the first community of Dominican tertiaries she gathered in Sainville: germ nucleus of the Congregation of the Dominican Sisters of Charity of the Presentation of the Holy Virgin, which, by the second half of the nineteenth century spread in many lands, especially of South and Central America. This foundation is at the root of that form of life which later developed fiorentissima with the various congregations of Sisters in the Dominican Family. Mary died January 24, 1744, but her memorial falls today, the date of her birth and baptism. Her tomb is in the parent company of Thurs.

Pope John Paul II beatified her on November 20, 1994.

Source: Santi e Beati