Marie-Louise Demeester

Marie-Louise Demeester (born April 8, 1857 in Roeselare , † October 10, 1928 in Heverlee ) was a Belgian Roman Catholic religious sister , missionary and founder of the order . It is at the beginning of the Soeurs missionnaires de l'Immaculée Coeur de Marie (ICM).

life and work

Marie-Louise Demeester (also: De Meester) attended the Augustinian boarding school in Ypres and the Ursuline high school in Tournai . At the age of 22 she entered the order of the canonesses ( Augustinian choir women ) of Ypres. When the diocese of Bruges finally complied with her wish for missionary work in India , where the Carmelite Victor Verleure († 1897) had called her, she left the monastery in 1897 with a fellow sister, traveled to India and founded Mulagumudu on the southern tip of India ( District Kanyakumari ) the Missionary Canonesses of St. Augustine . In 1905 she temporarily traveled back to Belgium in order to set up religious buildings and a novitiate in her hometown with the help of an aunt. She accepted invitations from the Scheutvelder missionaries and the Redemptorists and founded branches in the Philippines (1910), the Caribbean (1914), the Belgian Congo (1920) and China (1923).

Since the monastery in Roeselare was devastated in the First World War, the sisters, whose novitiate already numbered over a hundred in 1918, moved to Dilbeek , Leuven and finally to Heverlee, where they lived in the district of “De Jacht” (The Hunt) and popularly as Susters van de Jacht ("Sisters of the Hunt") were known. Before the order was completed, the founder died in 1928 at the age of 71 and was buried on site. In 1999, a statue was erected for her in the town of Roeselare, where she was born. From 1944 to 1996, the Order opened offices in 10 additional countries (including the United States and Brazil ). In 1963 the community joined the Scheutvelder missionaries and was henceforth called Missionary Sisters of the Immaculate Heart of Mary (ICM).

literature

• Richard Cushing: An apostle of today. Mother Marie Louise de Meester and her congregation, the Missionary Canonesses of St. Augustine. Missionary Canonesses of St. Augustine . New York 1950.
• Cecile Sandra: Marie-Louise de Meester. The message of a life . Missionary Sisters of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, Rome 1979.
  • (Dutch) Marie-Louise De Meester. Op weg met god . Befers Missionaries van het onbevlekt hart van Maria, Beveren 1981.

Web links

• Short biography, English, with picture
• Short biography, English
• Website on the canonies of Ypres, Dutch