Today January 25

Today is the feast of Blessed Mary of Providence (1825 - 1871). She was born in the city, one of six children of comfortable parents, and then moved to the country, where she loved to play outside chasing butterflies and picking flowers. Suddenly she started talking to her little friends about Purgatory -- they were nonplussed -- "The good God asks us only for a prayer to let [the souls in Purgatory] out and we don't say it!" Even in her young mind she began to link the concepts of Divine Providence and Purgatory. She thought she could even BE providence to the poor souls -- and offer them to God by prayers and little sacrifices.

She continued following her conviction even when she was homesick in boarding school. This "brilliant, warm and mischievous little girl" decided she would, instead of resisting the peaceful Sacred Heart nuns, become one herself as a way to "be providence for others." She distinguished herself in school to the point that another saint, Mother Madeleine Sophie Barat, said about her, "Who is that girl with the appealing eyes and the strong, intelligent face? She is a child of great promise. Watch her carefully."

She didn't automatically become a nun. After boarding school, she went back home, made the social rounds, quietly embroidered and studied art and music -- ostensibly to make herself a more attractive marriage candidate. But she still wanted to be a nun. She asked to join the Sacred Heart Sisters, but her parents forbade it. She started a lay apostolate for the poor, sewing for them at home, bringing them soup and donations, slipping in little notes to "Pray for the souls in Purgatory." She never forgot the Poor Souls. She never gave up her desire for religious life either. She went round and round considering whether she should found a community dedicated to the Poor Souls. She innocently asked for five signs from God to let her know if she should, and she received all five. But she was still full of confusion and uncertainty. Support came from an unlikely source: a man she had never met and unfortunately never would meet -- the Cure of Ars, St. John Vianney. Through letters alone he supported her, agreeing with her that the foundation was needed, and building up her self-esteem.

The little congregation, the Sisters Helpers of the Holy Souls, started in a tiny apartment in Paris in 1856. They supported themselves with piecework and begging. Poor Mother Mary of Providence suffered from homesickness, physical ailments and great spiritual dryness, but she never let it show. "My sufferings are as hidden as my virtues," she once joked in a letter to her mother. She wrote in a private journal about the hole in her soul, "a void in my heart, and You [Jesus] do not come to fill it!" She even struggled with doubt, doubt even about the existence of Purgatory itself, plunging all her work into meaninglessness and futility. But still she maintained her calm, her smile, her trust -- by an act of will. And she united it with the soul in Purgatory. "[I]t lives without light because it cannot see God, without joy because it cannot possess Him. . . . My life must be a continual Purgatory: that is the path along which God wills to lead me." She also suffered poverty, misunderstanding and the Franco-Prussian War of 1870 which came practically to her door. She died peacefully on February 7, 1871; some of her last words were: "Life is so short and eternity will never end." Blessed Mary of Providence, pray for us.