Today we continue our regular series here called “Learning from the Saints.” Our guide is saint-expert Bert Ghezzi, a dear friend of mine and the author of numerous books including Voices of the Saints, Saints at Heart, and Adventures In Daily Prayer.
His newest book is Discover Christ: Developing a Personal Relationship with Jesus. You can learn more about Bert and his work at BertGhezzi.com.
Today, Bert explores the life of Blessed Anne-Marie Jabouhey, a nineteenth-century justice hero.
Imagine a Mother Teresa in Napoleon’s day and you will have a picture of Bl. Anne-Marie Javouhey. Nanette, as she was called, was a velvet brick, a thin layer of gentleness covering her determined core. A competent leader, Nanette dominated every scene in her adventurous life.
In 1800, she tested her vocation with the Sisters of Charity at Besançon,France. One night she heard a voice say, “You will accomplish great things for me.” A few nights later, St. Teresa of Avila with black, brown and bronze children appeared to her. “God wants you to found a congregation to care for these children,” said the saint.
In 1801, Nanette and her three natural sisters opened a school for poor children near Chamblanc. During the next decade she ran two day schools and an orphanage. In 1812, she founded the Sisters of St. Joseph of Cluny. Then the dam burst, with demand for her sisters’ services clamoring throughoutFrance.
Nanette, now Mother Javouhey, held her sisters to a high ideal of community life that she articulated in the following communiqué:
“As we are joined together in community, we should live in unity with all its members, having one heart and soul. We should be always willing to labor and suffer privations without troubling others. We must possess nothing of our own, aware that everything belongs to the community according to the spirit of community life.
“If we find that we are in want for certain things—and surely we will be often—we should rejoice because holy poverty does not imply that we should want nothing. But rather it means that we should be happy to do without anything for the sake of God and the sake of others.”
In 1817, Mother Javouhey sent sisters to the African island of Reunion to open her first missionary outpost. It wasn’t long before she had sisters serving black, brown, and bronze people at remote places in Africa at Senegal, Sierra Leone, and Gambia, and in South America at French Guiana. With dogged faith the sisters battled extreme hardship everywhere they went.
At the government’s request, Mother Javouhey undertook some very unusual tasks. For example, she spent four years supervising the establishment of a colony for Blacks at Mana, French Guiana. Then in 1834 she accepted the most remarkable assignment of her life.
Six hundred slaves were to be liberated in Guiana, and she was asked to prepare them for emancipation by training them in the ways of religion and civilized society. Mother Javouhey arranged for each liberated family to own a house in town with a garden and acreage beyond the town to raise crops. The settlement became quite prosperous and attracted the jealousy of colonists at the mouth of the Acarouany River. A plot was hatched to kill her, but the boatman who was to tip her into the crocodile-infested water could not bring himself to kill the “dear mother” as she was known. There were no scenes or other troubles at the emancipation and liberation of this group of slaves as marked similar occasions in other French colonies.
Anne-Marie Javouhey spent the last years of her life in France directing the work of her burgeoning congregation. When she died in 1851, her sisters were in 32 countries and colonies. She was beatified in 1950.
(Image Credit: Catholique en France)
Read more from Bert at his website www.BertGhezzi.com, or check out his many books on Amazon.
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