Saint Émilie de Rodat

Called to Villefranche Villefranche Town where the saint founded her congregation. by her grandmother, she went to that city and entered as a boarder in the house of Mme Saint-C yr, where sho Mme Saint-Cyr Headmistress of the house where Émilie begins her teaching. rtly after she was asked to teach the catechism to young students preparing for their first communion. The manner in which she performed this task delighted the students: she sought to excite their love for the Holy Eucharist, which is the source of Christian life; she spoke often of this adorable mystery, and while preparing these young souls to receive the heavenly manna, the bread of the strong, the food reserved for the children of God, she accustomed them to approach the altars with trembling, respect, and happiness, to work for their adornment, and to regard it as an honor and a joy to prepare the linens, the flowers, and everything necessary for the celebration of worship and its splendor. She placed all her efforts under the protection of Mary, and did not forget to recommend her devotion; she constantly led her students toward it, having them learn and recite prayers and entrusting the whole little flock to the Blessed Virgin. She took pleasure in having her honored under the name of the Divine Shepherdess; this title was sing divine bergère A Marian title particularly dear to Émilie. ularly pleasing to Emilie's piety, and she always loved to greet the Mother of God under this humble title. With the souls entrusted to her, Mme de Rodat tried to apply the system of gentleness and patience that had once been used toward her. When she wished to see one of her students practice an act of virtue, she began by imposing it upon herself. The glory of God was always before her eyes: it was the sole goal of her labors. She prepared her students for confession, suggesting practices to excite them to contrition. She also indicated, with gentleness, to those who had some vicious inclination, the means to triumph over it, and carefully had them account for their efforts and progress. These vigilant cares, animated by the sole desire for the salvation of souls, were crowned with success.

However, Emilie had thus entered into the active life of charity through the religious instruction of children, and she was not to leave it again: every day, on the contrary, she would engage herself more in the service of God and the work of the salvation of her neighbor. She soon added to her charge of religious instruction that of supervising the children during recreation. She prepared for this latter task with the same care as for the catechism, always offering her efforts to God and praying that He bless her intentions. In the midst of these cares, Emilie did not forget the poor; she strove to make her students know the sweetness of charity. She always had some traits to recount of saints who had most particularly loved the poor and poverty; she cited their examples and encouraged them to imitate them; she advised the small mortifications that children can impose upon themselves, and which, for being light, are no less pleasing to God.

Emilie did not forget the end of education in this world; she recommended that her students carefully consult and study their vocation. Her own was taking shape every day. She did not yet have a very clear consciousness of it; but she wanted to serve God, to serve Him with all her strength, in all ways and on all possible occasions. She even went beyond what prudence demanded, and the boldness of her charity recoiled before nothing: she once undertook to console and heal a soul wounded in its passions; she soon perceived that the delirium of these unfortunate ones is contagious, and that the imagination always willingly submits to the charm of inflamed language. Emilie thus knew, by experience, the danger of bad company and the precautions one must take not to be led astray by them; she had recourse to the remedy as soon as she felt the peril: she did not wait for the peace of her soul to be troubled. She ran to confess and broke with the unfortunate one. But not all charities cause such perils: the soul of Emilie was strengthened in a love for the poor that was more ardent every day: she distributed to them everything she could dispose of; she sold her books and her linen; she wore clothes of common fabrics that she constantly mended and patched: the money given to her for her attire was distributed to the poor. She no longer calculated, she no longer reflected, so to speak, in the presence of a poor person; she wanted to relieve them. The liveliness of this first movement of the heart in the presence of poverty did not prevent Emilie from being persevering in her sacrifices; nothing cost her anything when the relief of an unfortunate person was in question.

The desire for religious life that had been born in her soul and was never to leave her was the reward for all the sacrifices she made every day and, as it were, the precious crowning of her faithfulness in responding to the attractions of grace. Emilie did not forget the poor, who were always the constant affection of her soul; and, while asking God for the grace to bind herself by vows to their service by consecrating herself to religious life and the education of children, she continued to visit and relieve, as much as she could, the unfortunate and the infirm. One day (May 1815), she had gone to visit a sick woman: it was a mother of a family, and Emilie found with her some neighbors and friends who were themselves burdened with children. These women lamented the abandonment in which their daughters were growing up, in a city absolutely devoid of means of instruction for the poor. "Before the Revolution," they said, "the Ursuline ladies taught for free; we were raised by them, and today, because we do not have the means to put our daughters in school, we must see them languish in ignorance and grow up in the forgetfulness of God!" These words pierced Emilie's heart like an arrow; the thought of all these souls regenerated by baptism and deprived of religious instruction made her shudder. Yielding to this first instinct, to this all-powerful attraction for the poor that had become as if natural to her, she asked these women to entrust their daughters to her, offering to instruct them herself. From that day on, the vocation of Mme de Rodat was known: she applied herself to it with ardor, and while waiting to be able to fully realize her thought, she obtained from Mme Saint-Cyr the authorization to hold school for all the poor children she could receive in her room. She embraced these children with a wonderful affection, but saw there only the beginning of her work: she did not forget the promise she had made to God. Her director designated for her, as being able to associate themselves with her enterprise, three young ladies also living at Mme Saint-Cyr's: Ursule Delbreil, Marie Boutaric, and Éléonore Dutriac.

Emilie and her compan Ursule Delbreil One of Émilie's first companions. ions settled, on April 30, 1816, in a house they had rented and immediately began the exercises of the community. They proposed to honor the divine Heart of Jesus in particular and to live entirely abandoned to the care of Providence. Providence responded to this generosity, and the good Master let these souls taste the happiness there is in leaving everything to follow Him. It was with delight that they consumed their sacrifice. In this poor and obscure house, heavenly joys now dwelt. The most essential things for life were missing. The pious young lady who had rented them the house took it upon herself to provide for their food and to meet the needs of the first days. To attract God's blessings upon the new establishment, they began by taking in a poor orphan. They wanted to house and feed her. The new Sisters were about as poor as their adoptee; the beds did not belong to them; they had been lent. Sister Emilie gave up hers, reserving for herself only a straw mattress. From the first day, the free class brought together about thirty children. A second class was opened, placed under the patronage of the Blessed Virgin. This class was not entirely free. Faithful to the attractions of her heart and to the promises she had made to herself, Sister Emilie, finding that the rich do not lack means of instruction, wanted to give in this class only an elementary instruction suitable only for families of modest condition.

One of their desires was to observe the enclosure exactly. They refrained from making visits; they received those who came to them in a sort of dark attic, which was like the parlor of the community. Despite all their desire to shut themselves away, they had to go out at least to go to Mass. They went there in silence; whatever the weather, they would not have wanted to miss it. The new house was a subject of mockery for the whole city. When they passed in the streets, they were pointed at; the children pursued them and surrounded them, laughing and hooting; sometimes they even threw stones at them. Sister Emilie was then at the height of joy. It seemed to her that her work bore all the marks of divine blessing. She was an object of scandal to the world; she was poor, already loved by the poor, and deprived of all human support. The contradictions, the contempt, the disdain were like the earnest money of God's promise.

Sister Émilie and her companions had been leading this strange and scandalous life in the eyes of the world and even in the eyes of their families for two mont hs when Mgr de Gr Mgr de Grainville Bishop who approved the new community. ainville passed through Villefranche (June 1816). The prelate came to visit the new community: he was delighted with what he found there. He admired the order that reigned in this house; he recognized the spirit of God in this spirit of poverty, charity, and renunciation that inflamed the Sisters. He granted them with all his heart the grace they requested to possess the Blessed Sacrament. From then on, they had nothing more to desire. The most indispensable items for worship were given, and the families of the Sisters began, in this circumstance, to draw closer to them. On Easter Day, April 6, 1817, Sister Émilie made her profession; she had finally committed herself to the service of God and the poor by this formal vow that she had so desired. The number of her students had increased considerably; the free class was full; the other class, where only elementary instruction intended solely for children of modest condition was still given, was overflowing with students. The house they occupied was too narrow: they thought of expanding. Mme de Saint-Cyr's house becoming available, in the month of June 1817, less than fourteen months after having left it, Sister Émilie, surrounded by her orphans and her poor children, came, escorted by eight nuns, to occupy this house. From then on, they were able to observe the enclosure rigorously.

After two years of staying in this house, Sister Émilie, to respond to various solicitations and especially to her desire to increase the good she was doing, did not let the opportunity to expand her establishment, which seemed barely founded, escape. She bought various parts of an old Co rdeliers convent, the total p ancien couvent des Cordeliers Building purchased to establish the community. rice of which exceeded 42,000 francs. She had no more money than on the first day. The parents of the Sisters who had joined the first founders did not have much attraction for the new Congregation, and one could not count on their support; but one had that of Providence. It was on June 29, 1819, that Sister Émilie transferred her community to the house she had just acquired. A few months later, at Our Lady of September, the Sisters, who until then had only worn a uniform habit, received with the customary ceremonies the religious habit from the hands of their superior. They also made the vows of religion into the hands of M. Marty. Sister Émilie made hers perpetual.

The work undertaken by the good sister Emilie bore the marks of divine blessing; amidst contradictions and difficulties, it progressed every day, established itself more and more, and began to gain substance in the eyes of even the most blind and disdainful men. As long as she had been exposed to derision and contempt, Sister Emilie had lived in peace; but she had never experienced anything that could make her conceive of the storm that was about to break upon her. On August 9, 1820, a month before Sister Emilie bound herself by perpetual vows, the most horrible temptations suddenly descended upon her like a storm, according to her expression. She suddenly found herself enveloped in the thickest darkness and delivered to all the strangest diabolical suggestions. The battle thus engaged lasted thirty-two years. The temptation she had to endure reached all the forces of her soul at once, and they were as if destroyed. Faith was as if vanished; all truths were veiled and obscure; the soul did not even feel the strength to adhere to and submit to the mysterious and revealed truths: it seemed to her that she was powerless before them and without the resilience to embrace them. At the same time, hope, that supernatural hope that faith germinates and sustains, seemed annihilated; the soul saw itself as abandoned by God; everything seemed to concur to prove to her that she was lost without recourse. God appeared to her as an enemy, and charity also, so to speak, no longer existed. She felt an incredible detachment from the sacred humanity of Jesus Christ, and henceforth without resource, without support, without consolation, she entered into dreadful desolations. The memory of the sweet union in which she had lived with her Savior then appeared to her; the joys she had tasted in this union, the refreshment her soul had found there, the favors, the slightest caresses she had received from her Beloved presented themselves vividly to her mind, and served only to revive her pain. God permitted that all the consolations that could be brought to her served only to afflict her, so that for her, remedies turned into poison. The words of her confessor exhorting her to peace terrified her, increased her pain, and renewed her torments. When she wanted to go toward God, she felt repelled and fell back into new terrors. Holy Communion, which had been her strength, had become a torment, as well as the application of the precious blood of Jesus Christ in the sacrament of penance. It was because of these painful anguishes that, during the last ten years of her life, her confessor gave her absolution and had her receive communion every day. Prayer, which had been her delight, was unbearable to her. She could not bring herself to go to the chapel; she counted the moments she spent there. If good thoughts or holy desires presented themselves to her mind, it increased her pain "in a way that I cannot explain," she wrote. She believed herself to be in the power of the demon and delivered to his minions. In the midst of her pain, she sent fiery cries toward heaven that should have consoled her; but it seemed to her that these sparks came from a foreign hearth, and she was distressed that they had not brought warmth and flame into her cold, empty, and desolate interior. In this distress, this night and this storm in which she was plunged, the poor Sister had obedience as her sole guide.

In the life of the Christian, the struggle must never cease. The works that Providence wishes to bless only prosper by passing through new trials every day. The contradictions that the new institute had encountered had not stopped its establishment, and the insults that the Sisters might receive were not to disturb their peace either. Sister Emilie regarded the humiliations she might have to endure as favors. It is a grace, she said, that the good God grants us by humbling us; let us not forget the days when we have such opportunities for merit, they are precious!

The first and greatest of the commandments, said Our Lord, is that which orders us to love God; and the second, as important as the first, orders us to love our neighbor. These two commandments contain the whole law. Mother Émilie fulfilled it entirely. The love of God and the love of neighbor occupied her whole life. These two loves are intertwined: one is born of the other. It was for the love of God that Mother Émilie devoted herself to men. She wanted to work for the salvation of souls: she knew that mysterious thirst that tormented Jesus Christ nailed to the cross; she would have liked to quench it, and nothing seemed repulsive or impossible to her when the glory of her Master was at stake.

The Mother's sole thought was to perform charity and to have it performed. To perform it first, to perform it with humility with the help of all sorts of meager resources that one could not enumerate. One cannot express her joy when she managed to discover a new method of combining poverty with charity. When the work of the Holy Childhood began to be preached, Mother Émilie embraced it and spread it with inconceivable ardor. Her heart was open to all devotions and all good works that presented themselves. The chapel of the Sisters of the Holy Family had been the first in V illefranche where the offi Sœurs de la Sainte-Famille Religious congregation founded by Émilie de Rodat. ce of the archconfraternity for the conversion of sinners was established. That was indeed a devotion made for Mother Émilie. The Holy Childhood was also an imagination of charity in which her spirit delighted: it was the last of the good works she tried to propagate. Her zeal embraced all good works; she loved those she established; she practiced all those that were indicated to her; she loved and saw with pleasure those in which she could not participate. She insisted that the Sisters of the Holy Family esteem their institute: nevertheless, she wanted them, in their humility, to look with love and respect upon all other religious Orders.

Mother Émilie always had frail health, and for many years she had considerable infirmities: the deterioration of her stomach and her distaste for all food increased as she advanced in age; but nothing was capable of stopping her work. The Congregation prospered under her care. During her lifetime, it already counted five cloistered houses, thirty-two school houses and external works of mercy; she instructed about five thousand children; nearly eighteen hundred received free instruction; one hundred and twenty orphans were adopted. The Sisters of the Holy Family also went, with joy, to all the works of charity that presented themselves; they governed eight asylums; they visited the poor and the prisoners; in some parishes they were in charge of distributing aid from the welfare offices; in Villefranche, they ran the Refuge house. Everywhere they made the Holy Family loved and honored. But in the midst of the success of these various works, Mother Émilie remained, tormented in every way, a prey to the perplexities and frightening anxieties of which we have spoken.

Around the month of April 1852, a small ulceration on her left eye was added to all her other discomforts. The sufferings increased: the illness worsened. The Mother's strength diminished; her thinness was excessive, and the disgust she felt for all kinds of food increased. She was happy in her sufferings; she saw in them an opportunity to do penance: "No one," she said to her Sisters, "thinks to congratulate me on my great disgust, which nevertheless provides me with the ease to atone for my sins of sensuality." She remained attentive in all things to mortifying herself. One of her greatest afflictions was no longer being able to do her usual reading herself. Towards the beginning of July, Mother Émilie found herself freed from her temptations, and her soul entered a state of peace. From then on, she had a premonition of her approaching end. Indeed, on September 19, 1852, she fell asleep in the Lord. Pope Pius IX signed, on March 7, 1 872, the co pape Pie IX Pope who canonized Josaphat in 1867. mmission for the introduction of the cause of the venerable servant of God. Cf. Vie de la vénérable Émilie, by Léon Aubineau Léon Aubineau Biographer of the saint. .