Louise de Marillac
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Saint Louise de Marillac (also known as Louise de Marillac Le Gras) (12 August 1591 – 15 March 1660) was a French nun and is a saint of the Roman Catholic Church.
[edit] Biography
Marillac was born illegitimately in Ferrieres-en-Brie near Meux, France. Her aristocratic father, Louis de Marillac, initially recognised her as his daughter, but later sent her to be raised by the Dominican Sisters in Poissy, where her aunt was a nun. She wanted to pursue a religious vocation, and applied to join the Capuchines aged 21, but she was refused (either on account of her poor health, or due to political machinations). She married Antony Le Gras, Secretary to the Queen Mother, in 1613 and had one child, Michael, on 18 October 1611, but she was widowed on 21 December 1625.
She became a religious follower of Saint Vincent de Paul, with whom she founded the Daughters of Charity on 29 November 1633, when she started to train others in her own home, the first community of non-cloistered sisters. The order was approved by the Vatican in 1655. She took vows in the new order, and was the order's superior until her death in Paris, by which time the order had 40 houses in France. It is said that her body remains incorrupt, and it remains on display in the chapel of the mother house of the Daughters of Charity in Paris to this day.
Her feast day is 15 March. She was beatified by Pope Benedict XV on 9 May 1920 and canonized by Pope Pius XI on 11 March 1934. She is the patron saint of disappointing children, loss of parents, people rejected by religious orders, sick people, social workers (Pope John XXIII, 2 February 1960), Vincentian Service Corps, and widows.
