Marie-Madeleine Postel

Marie-Madeleine Postel was born Julie Françoise-Catherine Postel on 28 November 1756 in Barfleur, a fishing port on the Cotentin peninsula in Normandy, France, the daughter of Jean Postel and Thérèse Levallois. She was educated by Benedictine nuns at Valognes. After returning to Barfleur she opened a school for girls, with particular attention to the poor. During the French Revolution she continued this work despite the suppression of public worship and of religious life. She sheltered priests, kept the Eucharist in her house, and helped sustain clandestine Catholic practice in her district. She bound herself by a private vow of chastity and devoted herself to teaching and works of mercy rather than to marriage or a conventional household.

In 1807, after a measure of religious liberty had been restored, she founded a community at Cherbourg with three companions. She took the religious name Marie-Madeleine. The institute became the Congregation of the Sisters of the Christian Schools of Mercy, whose purpose was the Christian education of poor children, especially girls, and charitable service. The early years were marked by poverty and instability. In 1832 the sisters obtained the ruined former Benedictine abbey of Saint-Sauveur-le-Vicomte, which they restored and made the motherhouse.

Mother Marie-Madeleine directed the congregation until her death. She was remembered for perseverance through the Revolutionary and Napoleonic periods, for trust in Providence, and for devotion to the Eucharist and the Sacred Heart. She died at Saint-Sauveur-le-Vicomte on 16 July 1846, at an advanced age. The congregation continued after her death and later spread beyond France.

She was beatified by Pope Pius X on 17 May 1908 and canonized by Pope Pius XI on 24 May 1925. Her liturgical memorial is kept on 16 July, the anniversary of her death.