Marie de l'Incarnation
1599-1672 17th century Feast day: April 30
Union with God that holds fast amid business, crossings and heartbreak.
Who was Marie de l'Incarnation?
Born in Tours, widowed at nineteen with a six-month-old son, she ran her brother-in-law's carting business while living an intense mystical life. In 1631 she entered the Ursulines, leaving her son Claude, aged eleven (a wound she carried all her life), then sailed in 1639 for Quebec, where she founded the first school for girls in North America, learned Algonquin and Iroquois and composed dictionaries. Her thousands of letters crossed the ocean until her death in 1672.
In their own words
It is Canada that I showed you; you must go there and build a house for Jesus and Mary.
God often begins with the general vocation, then he settles the heart in the place where he calls it. For several years my mind settled nowhere; then most evidently God made known to me that it was in Canada that he willed to be served in me.
Although in my depths I want neither life nor death, still, when I think of death or hear it spoken of, my heart opens wide and dilates.