Louise de Marillac

The major work of Louise de Marillac is the co-founding, with Saint Vincent de Paul, of the Company of the Daughters of Charity, traditionally dated November 29, 1633. To serve the poor and the sick, she gathered young girls from the countryside in her home to train them in a life of prayer and charitable service. The Company constituted a radical novelty in the Church of its time: its members were not cloistered nuns but sisters dedicated to active service, going out to meet the most destitute. As the first superior of the community, Louise directed the sisters toward all the outcasts of her era: she created small schools for poor girls, organized the reception and education of foundlings, developed the visiting of the poor sick in their homes, and sent sisters to the galley slaves. A woman of organization as much as of prayer, she wrote rules, trained the sisters, and maintained an abundant correspondence that testifies to her structuring role. At her death, the Company already counted several dozen establishments in France.

The holiness of Louise de Marillac is rooted in an intense interior life, marked by the trial of doubt and then by the light received at Pentecost in 1623, and in tireless dedication to the service of the poorest. Her spirituality, shared with Vincent de Paul, rests on the conviction that service to the poor is a service rendered to Christ himself. She thus exhorted the sisters: "Love the poor, honor them, my children, as you would honor Christ himself." This union between contemplation and concrete action, between the love of God and the effective love of neighbor, constitutes the heart of her journey. Of fragile health, she carried out her work at the cost of constant effort, sustained by a humility and perseverance that her writings reveal. Her reputation for holiness, already vivid during her lifetime among the sisters and the poor she served, continued to grow after her death.

The process for the recognition of the holiness of Louise de Marillac reached its conclusion in the 20th century. She was beatified on May 9, 1920, by Pope Benedict XV, and then canonized on March 11, 1934, by Pope Pius XI. Her liturgical feast was traditionally celebrated on March 15, the anniversary of her death; as this date regularly falls during Lent, a period not conducive to festive celebrations, the memorial was transferred to May 9, the anniversary of her beatification, in the General Roman Calendar starting in 2016. In 1960, Pope John XXIII proclaimed her the patroness of all those who dedicate themselves to Christian social works, a recognition that consecrates the charitable and social dimension of her action. Her body rests in the Chapel of the Miraculous Medal, at 140 Rue du Bac in Paris, the motherhouse of the Daughters of Charity.

The legacy of Louise de Marillac continues through the Company of the Daughters of Charity, which has become one of the most important female congregations in the service of the poor, present on every continent in education, health, and social assistance. With Vincent de Paul, she inaugurated a model of active religious life, without enclosure, which profoundly marked the history of Christian charity and inspired numerous subsequent foundations. Proclaimed by John XXIII as the patron saint of Christian social works, she is honored as a reference figure for social workers. Her tomb, at the chapel on Rue du Bac in Paris—a place also linked to the apparitions of the Miraculous Medal—remains a place of pilgrimage. Numerous institutions, schools, and hospitals bear her name throughout the world, testifying to the lasting posterity of her spiritual and charitable intuition.