Saint Colette

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Saint Colette
Born 13 January 1381(1381-01-13), Corbie, Picardy
Died 6 March 1447 (aged 66), Ghent
Venerated in Roman Catholicism
Beatified 23 January 1740
Canonized 24 May 1807
Feast
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Saint Colette (Corbie, Picardy, 13 January 1381—Ghent, 6 March 1447) was the founder of the order of Colettine Poor Clares (the Clarisses), a reformation of the Urbanist Poor Clares.

Her father, Robert Boellet, was the carpenter of the famous Benedictine Abbey of Corbie; her mother's name was Marguerite Moyon. Colette joined a succession of orders, the Beguines, the Benedictines, and the Urbanist Poor Clares. Later she lived for a while as a recluse in a hut near Corbie. Having resolved to reform the Poor Clares, she turned to the Avignon Pope Benedict XIII who was recognized in France as the rightful pope. Benedict allowed her to enter the Franciscan order of Poor Clares and empowered her by several Bulls, dated 1406, 1407, 1408, and 1412 to found new convents and complete the reform of the order. With the approval of the Countess of Geneva and the aid of the Franciscan itinerant preacher, Henri de la Beaume, her confessor and spiritual guide, Colette began her work at Beaume, in the diocese of Geneva. She remained there but a short time and soon opened at Besançon her first convent in an almost abandoned house of Urbanist Poor Clares. Thence her reform spread to Auxonne (1410), to Poligny, to Ghent (1412), to Heidelberg (1444), to Amiens, and to other communities of Poor Clares. To the seventeen convents founded during her lifetime must be added another begun by her at Pont-à-Mousson in Lorraine. For the convents reformed by her she prescribed extreme poverty, to go barefooted, and the observance of perpetual fast and abstinence.

During the Council of Constance she wrote to disavow Benedict, and during the Council of Basel she wrote to ask the bishops to withdraw.

She also inaugurated a reform among the Franciscan friars (the Coletani), not to be confounded with the Observants. These Coletani remained obedient to the authority of the provincial of the Franciscan convents, and never attained much importance even in France. In 1448 they had only thirteen convents, and together with other small branches of the Franciscan Order were suppressed in 1517 by Leo X.

In addition to the strict rules of the Poor Clares, the Colettines follow their special constitutions sanctioned in 1434 by the General of the Franciscans, William of Casale, approved in 1448 by Nicholas V, in 1458 by Pius II, and in 1482 by Sixtus IV.

Colette was beatified 23 January 1740, and canonized 24 May 1807. The Colettine Sisters are found to-day, outside of France, in Belgium, Germany, Spain, England, and the United States.

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