St Julie Billiart (1751-1816) foundress of the Sisters of Notre Dame
Loved to teach catechism
Julie was born at
Cuvilly, a village of Picardy, in the diocese of Beauvais, France.
When
she was seven, she knew the catechism by heart, and used to gather her
companions around her to hear them recite it and to explain it to them.
Recognizing something 'special' in her, the priest secretly allowed her
to make her First Communion at the age of nine, when the normal age at
the time was thirteen.
Paralysed and confined to bed for twenty-two years
Julie was
held in very high esteem for her virtue and piety and was commonly
called, "the saint of Cuvilly".
When twenty-two years old, a murder
attempt on her father gave her such a shock that her lower limbs were
paralysed and she was confined to bed for twenty-two years.
During this
time, she received Holy Communion daily, spent four or five hours in
contemplation and the rest of the day making altar linen and lace.
She
also gathered the village children around her bed to teach them
catechism in preparation for First Communion.
Viscountess Françoise Blin de Bourdon
During the
French Revolution Julie Billiart had to take refuge at Amiens, and it
was here she met Viscountess Françoise Blin de Bourdon, a thirty-eight
years old woman who had spent her youth in piety and good works.
She had
been imprisoned with all of her family during the Reign of Terror, and
had escaped death only by the fall of Robespierre. She was not
immediately attracted by Julie (paralysed and almost speechless), but
eventually grew to love and admire her for her wonderful gifts.
A small
company of friends of the viscountess (young and high-born ladies) was
formed around the bed of "the saint". Julie taught them how to lead an
interior life, while they devoted themselves generously to the causes of
God and the poor.
Though they attempted all the exercises of an active
community life, some of the first disciples dropped off until only
Françoise Blin de Bourdon was left.
Institute of the Sisters of Notre Dame
In 1803
under the auspices of the Bishop of Amiens, Julie and Françoise decided
to found a the Institute of the Sisters of Notre Dame, a society for the
Christian education of girls and the training of religious
teachers. Their first pupils were eight orphans.
Several young persons
offered themselves to assist the two superiors. They did away with the
distinction between choir sisters and lay sisters and put each sister to
work in a situation which best suited her.
On the feast of the Sacred
Heart, June 1, 1804, Mother Julie, after a novena made in obedience to
her confessor, was cured of paralysis.
Other houses of the order were
set up in Ghent and Namur and they set up the mother-house in Namur.
Later life, death and canonisation
In the space
of twelve years (1804-16) Mother Julie founded fifteen convents, made
one hundred and twenty journeys, many of them long and toilsome, and
carried on a close correspondence with her spiritual daughters. Hundreds
of letters are preserved in the motherhouse.
In 1815 Belgium was the
battlefield of the Napoleonic wars, and the mother-general suffered
great anxiety, as several of her convents were in the path of the
armies, but they escaped injury.
In January, 1816, she was taken ill,
and died after three months of pain borne with patience.
Her reputation
for sanctity spread and was confirmed by several miracles. She was
beatified by Pope Pius X in 1906 and canonised by Pope Paul VI in 1969.
Spirituality and influence
Julie's spirituality was captured by the simple and naive formula which was continually on her lips and pen: Ah, qu'il est bon, le bon Dieu (Oh,
how good he is, the good God!).
Today, the Sisters of Notre Dame work
with refugees in London, street children in Nairobi, teaching in Korea,
immigrant farm workers in Florida, AIDS orphans in Zimbabwe... and
always, women and children, who are among the very poorest.