Maria Salesia Chappuis

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Maria Salesia Chappuis (1793-1875)

Maria Salesia Chappuis , also Marie de Sales Chappuis (born June 16, 1793 in Soyhières , † October 7, 1875 in Troyes ) was a Swiss nun, sister of the Visitation of Mary and pioneer for the establishment of the Oblates of St. Francis de Sales .

Life

Thérèse (her baptismal name) Chappuis was born as the seventh of eleven children in the small village of Soyhières in the Swiss Jura . At the age of 14 she came to the boarding school of the Sisters of the Visitation of Mary in Freiburg . After finishing school, she initially returned to her parents, but felt called to become a religious sister. Her first attempt to do so failed because of homesickness. Only on her second attempt did she stay in the monastery. Her dressing took place on June 4, 1815. She receives her religious name Maria Salesia after the founder of her religious community, St. Francis de Sales . This saint will henceforth rule their lives. In her first year in the monastery, she immersed herself in the doctrine and spirituality of the founder of the order and the founder Johanna Franziska von Chantal . She experiences extraordinary visions in which her God gives to understand that her “work”, her task, is to found a religious community of men, as Francis de Sales intended, but to realize it due to his early death in old age of 55 years has not come. On June 9, 1816, in her religious profession, she promised a life under the three vows of poverty, celibacy and obedience according to the rules of the order of the Sisters of the Visitation of Mary. Shortly afterwards she was commissioned to rebuild the monastery of Metz, which had been closed during the French Revolution. In 1819 she returned to her mother monastery in Friborg. At the age of 33, on June 1, 1826, she was elected Superior of the Visitation Monastery in Troyes to renovate the monastery there internally and externally. In 1838 she was brought to Paris for the Visitation in order to be able to act as superior there. On her return from Paris to Troyes in 1844, she found Louis Brisson as the monastery spiritual. In him she sees the founder of the order of men in the spirit of St. Francis de Sales, to whose realization she feels called. It was not until 1872, however, that Louis Brisson actually established the Order of the Oblates of St. Francis of Sales founded. In 1875, the religious community of Pope Pius IX. recognized by the church. For Maria Salesia Chappuis, her life's mission was fulfilled. Shortly afterwards, on October 7, 1875, she died at the age of 82. On October 9, 1875, she was solemnly buried in the cemetery of the Visitation Monastery in Troyes. Efforts to get her beatification began immediately after her death . The trial was officially opened in Rome in February 1898. In the course of this trial, her coffin was opened on May 17, 1901. It was found that a thick layer of white mold had laid over her body. This was apparently because it was raining at her funeral and the coffin was only locked at the grave. After removing the mold, it was found that the body was almost completely intact. Only the nose was sagging inward and the pupils were rotten. Today the bones of Maria Salesia Chappuis rest in a separate chapel in the Visitation Monastery of Troyes.

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