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Biography

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Marie Guillemette Émilie de Rodat was born on 6 September 1787 at the Château de Druelle in Aveyron, in southern France, the daughter of Jean-Louis de Rodat and Henriette de Pomayrols. Her family belonged to the provincial nobility of Rouergue. The French Revolution began during her infancy and disrupted the region; she spent much of her childhood in the household of her maternal grandmother in the nearby town of Villefranche-de-Rouergue. There she received a devout Christian upbringing that fostered an early attraction to prayer and to the service of the poor.

As a young woman she sought to enter religious life and made more than one attempt to join existing congregations, yet she did not remain in any of them. After returning to Villefranche-de-Rouergue she continued a life of piety while living with her grandmother. In 1815 she began to instruct poor girls who had little opportunity for schooling after the revolutionary years, gathering them in a modest setting. Other young women soon joined her. In 1816 the group was constituted as a religious community under the name of the Sisters of the Holy Family of Villefranche. Émilie became the superior of the new institute, which dedicated itself to the Christian education of poor children, the care of orphans, assistance to the elderly and the sick, and the visitation of prisoners.

For more than three decades she directed the growing congregation, opening additional houses and forming the sisters in a spirit of simplicity, poverty, and devotion to the Holy Family of Nazareth. She herself lived an austere personal life and endured prolonged periods of ill health, including severe headaches and other ailments. Émilie de Rodat died in Villefranche-de-Rouergue on 19 September 1852. Devotion to her memory led to the introduction of her cause of canonization. Pope Pius XII beatified her on 9 June 1940 and canonized her on 23 April 1950. Her liturgical feast is observed on 19 September.

Her spirituality was marked by devotion to the Holy Family, which she proposed as the model for community life and apostolic work, together with Eucharistic piety and a spirit of reparation. After her death the Sisters of the Holy Family of Villefranche continued to expand and later received papal approbation. Saint Émilie de Rodat remains an example of a foundress who responded to the educational and social needs of post-revolutionary France through teaching, charitable service, and contemplative prayer. The congregation she founded continues that apostolate.

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