Blessed Mary of Oignies

Such a holy life not only inspired admiration in her husband, but also instilled in him the desire to follow her example. Indeed, looking upon his wife no longer as anything but his teacher in Jesus Christ, he resolved to keep chastity with her for the rest of his days, to distribute his wealth to the poor, and to devote himself entirely to works of piety. This change drew upon them the contempt of those who had previously regarded them on account of their riches; their relatives neglected them and mocked them, and the devil, who could not endure their continence and their detachment from the goods of the earth, set a thousand traps for them to force them to abandon their holy resolution; but neither the artifices of this enemy of mankind, nor the mockery and insults of the people of the world, who served as instruments for Satan, could ever shake their constancy; and, as they preferred the reproach of the cross of Jesus Christ to all the honors and all the pleasures of the age, they drew upon themselves the most abundant graces and blessings.

Regarding our Blessed one, she received from her Beloved, as a first favor, the gift of tears and a very tender love of compassion at the sight of the sufferings He endured for the salvation of men. She could not speak of them, nor hear them spoken of, nor even cast her eyes upon the Crucifix without weeping profusely or being caught up in ecstasy. Sometimes, to stem this torrent, she would apply herself strongly to contemplating the majesty of God and His impassibility; but, when the thought that this God of infinite majesty had suffered so much for her struck her mind, the tears would immediately begin to flow again with greater impetuosity. One day during Lent, while meditating in the church on the passion of Jesus Christ, she could not restrain her tears nor prevent her sighs and sobs; a priest asked her to moderate herself a little and to make her prayer in silence. As she knew that this did not depend on her, she left the church and withdrew to a private place, to give full freedom to her heart. There she asked God to make it known to this ecclesiastic how it was not in the power of the creature to stop her tears, when they proceeded from a movement of the Holy Spirit. Her prayer was immediately answered: for on the same day, this priest, while saying the Holy Mass, felt so touched and so compelled to shed tears that, despite all his efforts to restrain them, it was impossible for him to do so; he shed them in such great quantity that the vestments he was wearing and the altar cloths were all soaked.

Her heart was penetrated with the greatest contrition; and, according to the report of Cardinal de Vitry, her confessor, she never committed a mortal sin; she was nevertheless so touched by her faults that, after having confessed them with very great feelings of contrition, she believed she could never do enough penance to expiate them. Indeed, besides several mortifications that we will not report here, because they are more admirable than imitable, her life was nothing but a continual fast. She ordinarily lived only on vegetables, and it was very rarely that she ate fish. She lived for some time on bread so black and so hard that even dogs could not have eaten it. She took only one meal a day, in summer towards evening, and in winter an hour after sunset. The angels appeared to her and often kept her company. When she was at table, the sight of her guardian angel was very familiar to her, and she received from him all the instructions necessary for her conduct. She also had several times the vision of Saint John the Evangelist, for whom she had a sing ular devotion, and the c saint Jean l'Évangéliste Appears with the Virgin to instruct Gregory. onversation she had with these inhabitants of heaven gave her more pleasure than the most delicate meats and the most delicious dishes would have done. Our Lord thus rewarded with interior sweetness the contempt she had for her love of all bodily pleasures. She fasted on bread and water for three years, from the feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross until Easter. She was sometimes eight or ten days without drinking or eating; she even once spent thirty-five days without taking anything, and, what is more admirable, is that she was not at all inconvenienced by this prodigious abstinence; although she always continued the ordinary functions of her charity, she was as vigorous and as strong on the last day as on the first, as if she had not fasted at all. One should not be surprised at this, since her body was sustained by the abundance of graces with which her soul was filled.

She enjoyed the presence of God so tranquilly that nothing was capable of distracting her, and she was ordinarily so applied to thinking of Him that she spent several days without one being able to draw from her any other word than this: "I wish to receive the body of Our Lord Jesus Christ"; and, after having received it, she remained in the same silence, as if her spirit had been completely separated from her body. This sweet union with her God did not prevent her from working or from doing her other exercises; she made, once a year, the pilgrimage of Our Lady of Oignies barefoot, during the rigors of winter, without however suffering any inconvenience from it. The angels visibly accompanied her to lead her through the woods that had to be crossed, and by their ministry, she was often preserved from the rain that could have troubled her journey. Out of devotion to the Blessed Virgin, she sometimes spent days and nights making genuflections in her honor; at other times, she recited the Psalter, and, at each psalm, she said an Ave Maria on her knees. She was also accustomed to giving herself several strokes of the discipline at each genuflection she made; her prayers to God were almost always answered. She had noticed, by experience, that when her spirit, after prayer, found itself in a certain elevation, it was a sign that she had been answered; and that on the contrary, when it was in dejection, it was a mark that she had not been. She obtained victory for several tempted persons, who had had recourse to the merit of her prayers. She was always so burning with divine love, particularly when she was praying, that, in the greatest cold, she was all in a sweat, although she wore only a very light garment. She loved silence so much that she spent several months in a row without saying a single word: this practice was so pleasing to God that she had a revelation that because of this she would not go to Purgatory.

Her angelic modesty and her perfectly well-composed exterior showed the beautiful order that reigned in her interior. Her excessive austerities were nothing compared to the serenity of her face, on which the joy of her soul appeared admirably; there was only one thing that plunged her into sadness: it was thinking of the peril of a soul that is in sin, and the misfortune of a damned soul; she then entered into inconceivable anguish, she wept, she groaned, and she let out cries that touched the assistants with compassion. Her looks, her walk, and all her ways of acting breathed only simplicity: it was enough to cast one's eyes upon her to conceive devotion and feel moved to the practice of virtue. Her words were no less effective: they carried sweetness and consolation into the hearts of the persons to whom she spoke, and, to use the terms of the Spouse of the Canticles: "Her lips were like a honeycomb, and milk was hidden under her tongue." Never did one hear any worldly word come out of her mouth, and she could hardly say five or six words without mixing something of Our Lord into them. Penetrated with the fear of God, she dared not do anything before being sure that it was what was best for His glory. This timorous conscience made her view small venial sins with more horror than ordinary people look upon the most enormous crimes. She watched carefully over the slightest thoughts and the smallest movements of her heart, so that both were either so many victories or so many good works.

All these virtues were supported by a very profound humility. Although those who knew her held her in high esteem, far from glorifying in it, she believed herself to be the most miserable creature in the world; she thought she was useless on earth, and if she obtained any grace from God, she always attributed it to the faith and piety of others, deeming herself unworthy to be heard in her prayers. People of low condition and great sinners were welcome to her; and, instead of despising them, she considered them her superiors, unable to persuade herself that there was anyone more worthy of rejection than she. The evil that some impious people said of her devotion made no impression on her mind, just as the praises given to her were not capable of causing in her the slightest movement of complacency. She did everything possible to remain hidden from the eyes of creatures, and it was only by orders from heaven, whether secret or manifest, that she sometimes appeared to assist her neighbor. She distrusted her own insights so much that, in the difficult and important questions submitted to her, she gave no answer until she had consulted God on what she should say. A virtuous ecclesiastic, having allowed himself to be overcome by the prayers of his friends and relatives, had accepted a second benefice, although the first with which he was provided was sufficient for him to live frugally, as those consecrated to the altars should do: he asked her if there was any sin in possessing two benefices in this way; the blessed Mary took some time to have recourse to heaven before giving him an answer; and, after being divinely enlightened by revelation, she told him that, "in her prayer, she had seen a man clothed at first in a very white garment and who walked very freely; but this man, having been burdened with a black cloak, she had seen at the same time overwhelmed under the weight of his conscience." As she recounted this, the ecclesiastic knew inwardly, by a celestial light, the enormity of his sin, and, without further delay, he resigned his second benefice. "Forgive me, my brothers," adds the great Cardinal of Vitry, historian of this life, speaking to his readers, "forgive me, you who add dignity upon dignity and who make no scruple of heaping benefices one upon another: what I have just reported is not of my invention, but a revelation of Jesus Christ. Forgive also his servant: for what harm has she done you by giving salutary advice to her friend, and by declaring a truth that Jesus Christ had made known to her?" We could report here several other visions and revelations, in which our Saint knew the temptations and the secrets of the hearts of the people who consulted her. We could also speak of the conversions she made, the victories she won over the demons by discovering their artifices, the graces she obtained for those who implored the help of her prayers, her charity in assisting the souls in purgatory, her invincible patience in suffering illnesses without wishing to seek any relief, her prophecies, the knowledge given to her of the state of consciences, her ecstasies, the apparitions she had of Jesus Christ in the Holy Eucharist, her ardent zeal for crosses and sufferings, and finally a thousand other admirable things collected in two books by the famous author we have just cited. The crowd of visitors, attracted by her holiness, disturbing her solitude of Villerbroc, near Nivelle, she resolved to retire elsewhere to devote herself only to contemplation. God, whom she consulted on this matter, ordered her to settle in Oignies, letting her know that she would die there and be buried there. Her husband having allowed her to go there, she arrived on the day they were celebrating the feast of the Translation of Saint Nicholas, who is the patron saint. This holy prelate appeared to her on the road and accompanied her to the church. She live d in th Gignies Burial place and final retreat of the saint. is holy retreat in a manner so celestial that it is not possible to explain it. Her visions there were frequent, the visits of Our Lord ordinary, the apparitions of the angels almos saint Nicolas Saint to whom Flore had a particular devotion. t continuous. She was always in raptures and ecstasies; and, as she hardly ever left the foot of the altars, she often had familiar colloquies there with the Blessed Virgin. Her sighs were such, when she asked God for the dissolution of her body, that she was often thought to be dying. She thought of paradise, where she knew she would soon go, only with wonderful transports and her soul bathed in consolations. Finally, the more she saw the moment of her death approaching, the more her fervor and her love for her Beloved increased. Before falling ill, she warned that her infirmity would be long and painful, and prayed that no one should worry about her, because it was the will of God that she should suffer thus before entering into her glory. She went a year without taking anything every Monday, because she had had a revelation that she would be buried on such a day. She prepared herself for death by a fast of three months, during which she took only eleven meals, and the last fifty-three days of her life she took no other food than the Holy Eucharist.

The happy end of such a holy life being near, the demon presented himself to her to deliver a final assault on her virtue; but she drove him away immediately to enjoy the sight of the celestial spirits, who, having often visited her during the beautiful days of her life, did not wish to abandon her at the hour of her death. Saint Andrew, to whom she had great devotion, appeared to her during the height of her pains, and said these words to strengthen her: "Have confidence, my daughter, I will not abandon you and I will bear good witness to God of your love for the Cross." Finally, after having seen the place that was destined for her in heaven, she rendered her soul amidst songs of joy, into the hands of her Spouse, who honored her with His divine presence, in order to clothe her, upon leaving this world, with eternal glory. It was the year 1213, which was the thirty-sixth year of her age, Sunday, June 23, the day on which, according to some, Saint John the Evangelist died, to whom she was singularly devoted. She had predicted this time six years earlier. One saw on her face none of the sad marks of death; the same radiance and the same serenity remained there always, and the rays that emanated from it brought those who looked at her to piety. After her death, she loved the people she had been fond of during her life, appearing to them, either to console them in their sorrows, or to give them advice in their affairs, or to reveal to them the dangers to which they were exposed, or to deliver them from the doubts that troubled their minds. Several holy religious have had visions in which they have known the glory she enjoyed in heaven. Finally, the faithful who have implored her assistance have received so many graces through the merit of her intercession, that her holy relics have become the object of the greatest respect. In the year 1609, François de la Bussière, Bishop of Namur, by order of Paul V, had this holy body raised from the ear th, to Paul V Pope who approved the bull of erection of the Oratory. place it in a silver reliquary and transport it under the altar of the church of Notre-Dame d'Oignies, which considers itself infinitely happy to possess such a precious treasure. Since then, a special office has been composed in her honor, which Jean d'Avrain, successor to François de la Bussière, approved in the year 1619. At the end of the last century, after the suppression of the monasteries, her body was, in 1817, transported to the church of Saint-Nicolas in Nivelles, not far from the house where she was born. Her name has been inserted into the calendars of several churches in Belgium; her office, approved by Pope Gregory XVI, at t he request o Grégoire XVI Pope who established the liturgical feast of the blessed. f H. E. Cardinal Archbishop Sterckx, is celebrated in the Archdiocese of Mechelen.

The life of Blessed Marie d'Oignies was written by Jacques de Vitry, a nati Jacques de Vitry Cardinal and historian, author of the life of Marie d'Oignies. ve of Argenteuil, near Paris. She could not have had a more excellent historian than him: for first, he is a man whose extraordinary merits raised him to the bishopric of Acre, to the dignity of cardinal in a promotion by Gregory IX, and to Grégoire IX Pope who attested to the miracles of Bruno. those of Bishop of Frascati and legate in France against the Albigensians. Fu contre les Albigeois Context of religious crisis and mission in Languedoc. rthermore, he knew the life of our Saint particularly well; he had even been a witness to most of the things he recounts when he was still a regular canon at Oignies, and had conversed familiarly with her, as his narrative sufficiently indicates. When he left her to go and preach the crusade against the heretics, by an express commission from the Pope, not knowing whether he would return for her death or not, she left him by testament a belt she used, a handkerchief with which she wiped her tears, and some other small items, vile in appearance, but which this learned cardinal valued more than gold and silver. After her death, he always maintained such great respect for her that he wore her relics, encased in a silver reliquary, around his neck. In his testament, which he made in Rome, where he died in the year 1244, he ordered that his body be taken to Oignies to be buried in the church of Notre-Dame, where his tomb can still be seen.

She is represented: 1st, raising her eyes toward an angel appearing to her, to show that she was favored during her life with these heavenly visions; 2nd, prostrate before a crucifix, to recall that she obtained the return to grace of a hardened sinner; 3rd, near a small cell where she ended her days; 4th, covered by the Mother of God during a heavy rain, at the moment she was going on a pilgrimage in honor of the Blessed Virgin. She should above all be represented praying for the deliverance of the souls in purgatory, of whom Marie d'Oignies thought continually, as the historians of her life teach us.

She is invoked for pregnant women and against fevers.

Acta Sanctorum Acta Sanctorum Monumental hagiographic collection by the Bollandists. ; — Cf. Godescard, etc.

VIES DES SAINTS. — TOME VII. 17