Maria Magdalena Postel

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Statue of Maria Magdalena Postel, Basilique de la Trinité de Cherbourg

Maria Magdalena Postel ( real name : Julie Françoise Catherine Postel; born November 28, 1756 in Barfleur , † July 16, 1846 in Saint-Sauveur-le-Vicomte ) was a French Catholic founder of the order . She is the founder of the Sisters of St. Mary Magdalene Postel .

resume

Julie Françoise Catherine Postel was born in Barfleur in 1756 as the first child of the married couple Jean Postel and Thérèse Levalois. In 1768 she entered the school of the Benedictine Sisters of the Royal Abbey of Valognes and studied there until 1774. At the age of 18 she returned to her home town and founded a school with boarding school, teaching according to the approaches of the French reform pedagogue Jean Baptiste de La Salle was granted. During the French Revolution , despite the ban, it gave religious instruction and housed persecuted clergy among others. On February 13, 1798, she entered the Third Order of St. Francis. On September 8, 1807 she founded the Community of the Poor Daughters of Mercy with Catherine Bellot, Marie Viel and Angélique Ledanois . She chooses the name Maria Magdalena for herself . From 1832 the sisters of the community built a motherhouse in the dilapidated former Benedictine abbey of Saint-Sauveur-le-Vicomte . Maria Magdalena Postel died in 1846 and at that time left a community with 37 branches, 150 sisters and 20 novices.

She was beatified on May 17, 1908 by Pope Pius X. and on May 24, 1925 by Pope Pius XI. canonized. Her feast day in the liturgy is July 16.

The religious community

The foundation of the Poor Daughters of Mercy in 1807 was followed by 25 years of wandering in search of a suitable religious house, until a ruined Benedictine abbey was acquired in 1832. The main activity of the sisters during this period is the upbringing of girls.

After the founder's death, Placida Viel became her successor, who opened the first branch in Germany. During the Kulturkampf , the sisters had to leave Germany. They only returned in 1882 and reopened the parent company in Heiligenstadt in 1887 .

During the First World War , the sisters were forced to cut ties with France. Because of this, an independent German congregation was founded in 1920 . In the following years the company was founded in the Netherlands , Bolivia and Brazil .

After the Second World War , the mother house in Heiligenstadt was cut off from West Germany , where the order maintained many houses; therefore in 1947 the generalate was temporarily relocated to Geseke . After the construction of the inner German wall , a mountain monastery was built in Bestwig , which served as the seat of the general government. Almost 25 years after the fall of the Berlin Wall , the Generalate was moved back to Heiligenstadt in 2003 and the management of the European province was established in the Bestwig mountain monastery .

In 2007 the religious order celebrates its 200th anniversary.

literature

Web links

Commons : Maria Magdalena Postel  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Ulrich Füsser:  Postel, Julie Françoise Catherine. In: Biographisch-Bibliographisches Kirchenlexikon (BBKL). Volume 27, Bautz, Nordhausen 2007, ISBN 978-3-88309-393-2 , Sp. 1076-1080.  ( Article / beginning of article in Internet archive )
personal data
SURNAME Postel, Maria Magdalena
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Postel, Julie Françoise Catherine
BRIEF DESCRIPTION French Catholic founder of the order
DATE OF BIRTH November 28, 1756
PLACE OF BIRTH Barfleur
DATE OF DEATH July 16, 1846
Place of death Saint-Sauveur-le-Viscount