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Saint Marguerite Bourgeoys
Image: Attributed to Antoine Plamondon · Public domain · Wikimedia Commons

Saint Marguerite Bourgeoys

Montreal's first schoolteacher and founder of a community of uncloistered sisters

Rank
Saint
Kind
Founder, Religious
Life
1620 – 1700
Era
17th century
Feast
12 January
Countries
France, Canada
CanadaFrance

Life story

Marguerite was born on 17 April 1620 in Troyes, in Champagne, France, into a merchant family with many children. She lost her mother early and later joined a lay sodality for young women connected with the Congregation of Notre-Dame of Troyes, where she learned to serve the poor and teach catechism. She tried to enter an enclosed religious order but was not accepted.

In 1653 Paul de Chomedey de Maisonneuve, founder of the colony of Ville-Marie on the island of Montreal, invited her to teach the children there. She arrived late that year, when the colony numbered only a few hundred people. She helped to build the chapel of Notre-Dame-de-Bon-Secours, begun in 1657, and in 1658 she opened a school in a former stable for the children of settlers and of indigenous families.

She returned to France more than once to find helpers. She received the young women sent to Canada to marry settlers, often called the filles du roi, and helped them to settle in. With a few companions she founded the Congregation of Notre-Dame; the sisters did not live enclosed but went out to work among the people, which was unusual in her day. Their rule was approved in 1698.

She died in Montreal on 12 January 1700. She was beatified in 1950 and canonised by John Paul II in 1982, the first woman associated with Canada to be canonised. Although she was born in France, she is regarded as a saint of Canada.

Works and witness

  • Went to Ville-Marie in 1653 to teach children
  • Opened the colony's first school in 1658
  • Helped to build Notre-Dame-de-Bon-Secours chapel
  • Founded the Congregation of Notre-Dame, sisters not enclosed
  • Rule approved in 1698

Saints from the same country

Saint Bernard of Clairvaux, Saint Louis IX of France, Saint Joan of Arc, Saint Francis de Sales

References

  • Martyrologium Romanum
  • Dicastery for the Causes of Saints – biographical profile
  • Marguerite Bourgeoys, Écrits autographes

Written by Anawim from documented history. Some details about ancient saints rest on tradition and are marked as such.