“What God wants will be done in his good time.’ These words of Louise de marillac came true for her.
Louise was born near Paris, France. Her father belonged to the aristocracy, she never knew her mother. When Louise was four years old, her father remarried. Louise wasn’t accepted by her stepmother. She was sent to school at a Dominican convent where her aunt was a nun. At this time Louise desired to become a nun too.
Louise’s father died when she was 13, and her life changed completely. There was no money for her education, so Louise had to live and work in a boarding house. There she learned domestic skills and the use of herbal medicines.
When she was 22, Louise married Antoine le Gras, the secretary to the Queen of France. Soon a son, Michel Antoine, was born to them. Louise again associated with the nobility. Though she had a busy social and home life, Louise worked with an organization of women dedicated to helping the poor. Because of her experiences, Louise felt equally comfortable with the rich and with the poor.
After seven years of marriage, Antoine became ill. Worried, Louise became depressed. Then praying to know God’s will, she had a vision of herself serving the poor as a member of a religious community. She had no idea how this would happen, but Louise believed that God’s will would be done.
About the same time, Louise met Vincent de Paul, a priest who became her spiritual director. When her husband died two years later, Louise worked with Monsi9eur Vincent to direct his Confraternities of Charity. Unlike most cultured women, Louise went into poor homes to cook, clean, and tend the sick.
Four years later Louise started training young women in her home to serve the poor and to live as a community serving god. She was supported and guided by Vincent de Paul. This was the beginning of the Daughters of Charity. Over the next 10 years, many women joined Louise. They brought improved nursing practices to hospitals, treated soldiers on the battlefield, and ministered to galley slaves and prisoners. They ran soup kitchens, hospices, job training centers, and free schools.
When Louise was 51 years old, she and the first Daughters of Charity made vows. Up to that time, religious communities for women had been cloistered. The daughters of Charity were the first order to take an active role outside convent walls. A year later her son married, and soon Louise was the grandmother of a baby girl. The next year Louise established the first mission of the Daughters of Charity outside of France in Warsaw, Poland.
In 1960 Pope John XXIII named Louise the patroness of social workers. Today there are 27,000 Daughters of Charity serving around the world. |
