Jesuit Writes On St. Louisa de Marillac The Foundress Of The Company Of Sister Of Charity

The recent history of Mother Seton and her Daughters, the American Sisters of Charity. In the meantime we have received the present history of the Venerable Foundress of the Sisters of Charity in France, the parent stock upon which a considerable portion of the American congregation became in the course of time engrafted.

It was the good fortune, or rather the providential ordainment, of Louise de Marillac, to have had all through her career the guidance of so prudent and so holy a director as St. Vincent de Paul. Indeed, as Fr. Bernard Vaughan , S.J. observes in the preface to this volume, St. Vincent may well be called the co-founder with Louise de Marillac of the Company of the Sisters of Charity, though more properly he was its chief spiritual director. Here were two saints both alike inspired to found and form and fashion a company of religious women destined to fill up a gap daily yawning wider in the Church of God.

Each supplied what the other had not; each complemented the work of the other—Vincent lending the results of his large experience among the poor, and Louise gathering the raw material which her womanly hand prepared with love and care and patience, for the Saint's inspiring counsel and direction. We have here the personal agencies that seem to explain the genesis of an institution that has girdled the earth with the cords of Adam.

Link (here)

On Fr. Bernard Vaughn, S.J.

"Yes, it was very probable that Father Bernard Vaughan would come again to preach. O, yes: a very great success. A wonderful man really." (U10.23)

Father Bernard Vaughan S.J. (1847-1922) was an eloquent and theatrical speaker. His contemporary Father Feeney S.J. wrote:

"Father Vaughan was never a lecturer at the lectern, nor a pulpit pedagogue. He was first, last, and always, a preacher. Those who could not match him at excellence in this endeavored to depreciate him."

And further: "Often, when speaking in public, he tried to offer England a sociological Jesus, instead of the Jesus Who died to save our souls. He made Our Lord the ardent supporter, almost contributor, to all sorts of uplift enterprises, for better food, better living quarters, better hospital care. As a Catholic in the pulpit, Father Vaughan was edifying."

Link (here)

More St. Louisa de Marillac

St. Louise's feast day is on March 15. She was beatified by Pope Benedict XV on May 9, 1920 and canonized by Pope Pius XI on March 11, 1934. She is the patron saint of disappointing children, loss of parents, people rejected by religious orders, sick people, social workers (named as such by Pope John XXIII on February 2, 1960), Vincentian Service Corps, and widows..