Today March 6

Today is the feast of Saint Colette. Doesn't that make you think of the little girl in "Les Miserables"? Yeah, me too.

Colette was French right down to her core, you know. She was energetic, logical, formal and passionate, all at once. I wish *I* were French! I think we Americans have entirely the wrong opinion of the French. We look at them through the skewed lens of this very short period of history which shows them in merely a supporting role (especially in recent world wars), which misses the point. They are a very warlike people, but that's not all . . . as I said, they're passionate, intellectual, formal and energetic. Belloc said, "All their roads are straight." Now, I find that hard to believe, but St. Colette's road was very straight, at least once she joined the Poor Clares. She'd tried the Beguines, then the Benedictines and even the Poor Clares at Pont-Saint-Maxence . . . all too lax for her! She walled herself in at the church of Notre Dame de Corbie as a third-order Franciscan for 3 years. She had a vision of St. Francis and St. Clare, and she emerged to reform the Poor Clares. Which she did. She traveled all over France, Spain, Flanders and Savoy (then independent of France); performed miracles; endured many trials; and, with St. Vincent Ferrer fought schism. She died in Flanders, after establishing 17 new convents, reforming numerous old ones and even some friar's houses as well. Imagine! A woman reforming MEN'S practice. She accurately predicted her own death and is now buried in Poligny.