Julie Billiart

Maria Rosa Julie Billiart (born July 12, 1751 in Cuvilly , Picardy , Kingdom of France , † April 8, 1816 in Namur , United Netherlands ) is the founder of the religious institute of the Sisters of Notre Dame of Namur .

She pioneered the education and teaching of young girls in the 19th century . 1906 Julie Billiart by Pope Pius X beatified in 1969 by Pope Paul VI. Canonized in Rome , her feast day is celebrated on April 8th .

Life

Childhood and youth

Julie Billiart grew up in Cuvilly as the niece of the local elementary school teacher, learned early and quickly and passed on her knowledge as a didactic natural talent to the children of the poor, combined with instruction in the catechism . From the age of eight, she received support from a Sorbonne- educated Abbé and read spiritual writings with enthusiasm. By visiting sick people at the same time, she acquired the reputation of a little "saint" in the village.

As an adolescent, she experienced the death of two siblings and, at 16, the impoverishment of the family through theft. So she undertook the hardest work, but kept the habit of teaching catechism and was in contact with the Carmelites of Compiègne , who later became notorious as martyrs of Compiègne .

The disease

At the age of 22 Julie broke out (apparently after a shock) multiple sclerosis . She lived with pain and muscle weakness from 1774 to 1782, then she was bedridden for two decades and temporarily lost the ability to speak. In this state, Julie, who had taken a vow of chastity at the age of 14, grew up to be a mystic of suffering, who gave spiritual instruction from her sick bed or gave advice to the numerous visitors, often from higher ranks, a role that played a role in the fate of Marthe Robin remembers.

Life underground during the revolution

The French Revolution made her life a time of suffering. At the moment of the civil constitution of the clergy , which created a kind of schism between the oath-taking and oath-refusing priests and religious in the Catholic Church in France, Julie (in contrast to the vast majority of her diocese) sided with the oath-refusers. With the help of her 16-year-old niece Félicité, she had to hide in the castle of a noble family and when she was evicted, in Compiègne, where she changed her whereabouts five times, despite her paralysis. In Compiègne she experienced the horrors of the revolution, namely in July 1794 the martyrdom of the Carmelites. While the revolutionary experiences caused psychological damage to many Christians, Julie met the tribulations with a mysticism of the cross, which can be summarized as follows: There is no life without a cross. Life is suffering and suffering is life. And that's good. God is good. «Ah! qu'il est bon, qu'il est bon le bon Dieu! »(O how good is the good Lord!).

Meeting with Françoise Blin de Bourdon

In October 1794 she followed a noble friend (Madame Baudouin) to Amiens. There I met the noble Françoise Blin de Bourdon, Mademoiselle de Gézaincourt (1756-1838), who had been introduced to the king at the Versailles court, had attended Benedictine and Urulin schools, and lived for a time with the Carmelites in Compiègne and felt the longing for a contemplative life. All further development, as it was, was only possible through the connection between the two women, Julie as the spiritual motor and Françoise as the friend and financier with a social rank that also impressed the clergy. Under the pressure of the renewed persecution by the state organs from September 1797, Julie, Félicité, Françoise and their spiritual supervisor Antoine Thomas escaped to Bettencourt (today: Bettencourt-Saint-Ouen ) from 1799 to 1803 , and lived there undisturbed. Julie's condition improved. She could speak freely and sit in an armchair.

Foundation of the order in Amiens

In Bettencourt there was an encounter with the Jesuit and religious founder Joseph Varin (1769-1850), who was already supporting Sophie Barat in Amiens , who later founded the Society of the Sacred Heart of Jesus (Sacré-Cœur) . Varin encouraged Julie to return to Amiens and start a congregation. The political turmoil of the past decade had left numerous orphans in dire need of care. So Julie, Françoise and another like-minded woman (Catherine Duchâtel) founded the “ Sisters of Notre Dame ” community on February 2, 1804 , which grew rapidly. In May of the same year, Julie regained her ability to walk after 22 years of paralysis. In 1805, four sisters took their vows and elected Julie as superior. The first branch communities were established in Sint-Niklaas , Bordeaux , Namur and Montdidier . Financially, the community stood thanks to the fortune of Françoise, the support of a friend of Françoise, Jeanne de Croquoison, widow Franssu (also Fransu, 1751-1824), who was supposed to found a congregation in 1812 (Nativité de Notre Seigneur "Christ's Birth" with Barthélemy-Louis Enfantin, 1776–1855), and thanks to Julie's keen business acumen, there was no fault. It was approved by the government in 1806 (confirmed by Napoleon in 1807).

Hostility in Amiens

The difficulties which Julie now overcame and which she shared with numerous women religious founders in the 19th century resulted from the struggle for authority between a pious but self-confident matron and founder on the one hand and the male spiritual authorities (bishop, spiritual director, confessor) on the other had the priestly monopoly and derived from it a power of disposal that was often enough linked to a widespread form of disdain for the feminine. Bishop Claude-Jean-François de Mandolx (also: Demandolx, 1744-1817) and the spiritual director Louis-Etienne de Sambucy de Saint-Estève were not good for Julie, made life difficult for her and took advantage of it (by preferring another sister or by narrow interpretation of the rule) any means of driving a wedge into the community. Julie was removed and reinstated several times, and those who were not compliant among the sisters were punished with deprivation of the sacraments and threatened with eternal agony.

Relocation to Namur

In this situation, the way out came from the Bishop of Namur, Charles-François-Joseph Pisani de La Gaude (1743–1826), who made a magnificent building in Namur (now Rue Julie Billiart) available to Julie in 1809, in which she The motherhouse was able to move and gradually most of the Amiens sisters relocated to it. Julie spent the following years visiting the more and more numerous foundations, so she was constantly on the move. In the spring of 1813 she visited Pope Pius VII in Fontainebleau. When she died in 1816, Françoise (mother St. Joseph Blin de Boudon) was elected her successor.

The Amersfoort Sisters

In 1822 the Jesuit Matthias Wolff (1779-1857) founded a congregation in Amersfoort in the Netherlands , whose first sisters made their novitiate in Namur and then called themselves Sisters of Jesus, Maria and Joseph (JMJ) in Amersfoort. From this community the independent congregation of the Sisters of Notre-Dame of Amersfoort emerged, which today work in the Netherlands, Indonesia, Malawi, the Philippines and Malaysia.

The Coesfeld sisters

In 1850 the Amersfoort monastery sent three nuns to Coesfeld , around the women Hiligonde Wolbring (1828–1889, later Sister Maria Aloysia) and Elisabeth Kühling (1822–1869, later Sister Maria Ignatia), their spiritual director Theodor , who were charitable in the spirit of Bernard Overberg Elting (1819–1862) was to train as nuns. In 1852 they made their profession . The new branch of the Order of the Sisters of Our Lady grew rapidly and from 1855 under Prussian pressure formed a separate congregation from Amersfoort, which in 1872 had more than 200 sisters in 32 branches, was expelled by the Prussian government in 1873 and went to the United States, however, it was able to return in 1887 and is now represented on all continents (except Australia). The Generalate is in Rome today. The German branches have their center in the Annenthal Abbey in Coesfeld.

The Namur sisters

The Namur sisters founded a branch in Cincinnati in 1840 , which went to Oregon in 1844 and from there to California in 1852 , where it took off considerably. This branch of the Sisters of Notre Dame is also present on several continents today.

Memorials

In Cuvilly and Namur streets are named after Julie Billiart. In Ressons-sur-Matz a parish bears her name.

literature

in order of appearance

Vincent Baesten: Vie da la mère Julie Billiart, Fundatrice de l'Institut des Sœurs de Notre-Dame de Namur, 1751–1816 . Casterman, Paris 1879.
Charles Clair: La vénérable mère Julie Billiart. Fondatrice et première supérieure générale de l'institut des soeurs de Notre-Dame à Namur . Savaète, Paris 1896.
Bernard Arens : Blessed Julie Billiart, founder of the Cooperative of Notre Dame, and her work . Herder, Freiburg im Breisgau 1908. (Dutch, Utrecht 1922)
Marie Halcant: Les Idées pédagogiques de la bienheureuse mère Julie Billiart, fundatrice de la Congrégation des sœurs de Notre-Dame de Namur . P. Lethielleux, Paris 1921.
Paul Haimon: Mère Julie Billiart. Stichteres van de Beschers van Onze-Lieve-Vrouw te name . Lumax, Utrecht 1969 ("Paul Haimon" is the pseudonym of Leo Cornelius Willem Laugs).
Mary Linscott: Julie Billiart. Foundress of the Sisters of Notre Dame . Translated from English by Bernarde Derichsweiler SND. Verlag Neue Stadt, Munich 1980, ISBN 3-87996-109-3 .
Sainte Julie Billiart . In: Francesco Chiovaro u. a. (Ed.): Histoire des saints et de la sainteté chrétienne , vol. 10: Claude Savart (ed.): Vers une sainteté universelle, 1715 à nos jours (part 2). Hachette, Paris 1988, ISBN 2-245-02092-8 , p. 193.
Ekkart Sauser : Julie Billiart. In: Biographisch-Bibliographisches Kirchenlexikon (BBKL). Volume 16, Bautz, Herzberg 1999, ISBN 3-88309-079-4 , Sp. 128-129. ( Article / beginning of article in Internet archive )
Pierre Dhombre, Jaume Marzal: Sainte Julie Billiart, fondatrice des Sœurs de Notre-Dame de Namur. Une femme qui a su croire et aimer . Éditions du Signe, Strasbourg 2000, ISBN 2-7468-0271-6 .
Myra Poole: Prayer, protest, power. The spirituality of Julie Billiart today . Canterbury Press, Norwich 2001, ISBN 1-85311-427-8 .
Jo Ann Recker: Françoise Blin de Bourdon. Woman of Influence. Paulist Press, New York 2001.
Roseanne Murphy (* 1932): Julie Billiart. Woman of Courage. The Story of the Foundress of the Sisters of Notre Dame . Paulist Press, New York 1995; Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur, no location 2014.

Web links

Individual evidence

↑ http://www.jmjbangalore.org/jmj_world.html

personal data
SURNAME	Billiart, Julie
ALTERNATIVE NAMES	Billiart, Maria Rosa Julie
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	French founder of the order of the Sisters of Our Lady (1804) and saints
DATE OF BIRTH	July 12, 1751
PLACE OF BIRTH	Cuvilly , Piccardie, France
DATE OF DEATH	April 8, 1816
Place of death	Namur , Belgium

[1] ttp://www.jmjbangalore.org/jmj_world.html