Thérèse Durnerin

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Thérèse Durnerin (born December 31, 1847 in Paris , † April 7, 1905 ibid) was a French Roman Catholic mystic and founder of the Société des Amis des Pauvres .

Live and act

Parisian from a good family

Thérèse Durnerin was the daughter of a Catholic doctor who belonged to the charitable Vinzenzgemeinschaft , and the granddaughter of Nicolas-Étienne Quatremère (1751-1794), who had guillotined the French Revolution because his philanthropy "humbled the poor". As a teenager she traveled with her father through Germany, Switzerland and Italy and in 1864 had an audience with Pope Pius IX in Rome .

Illness and Sacrifice

After the loss of her father in 1868 and terrible experiences during the Paris Commune , her anemia, which had existed for a long time, developed into a bedridden condition for which no cure was expected. In 1875 she also lost her mother and from then on saw her illness as a possibility of vicarious suffering for the sins of the world, as an atonement in following Jesus Christ . She was out of the house for the last time in 1881. She spent her life handicrafts and prayer.

Propagandist of the Sacred Heart of Jesus

From December 1883 she reported on apparitions of the " Ecce Homo ", from 1885 she began to write, claimed that Jesus had asked her to write apostolate and Christian propaganda and first wrote prayer slips, of which she had more than a million printed and distributed in French, later also in other languages. In 1888 she published the book The Host and the Priest. The Eucharistic Heart of Jesus (L'hostie et le prêtre. Le coeur eucharistique de Jésus) , which reached a circulation of 200,000 within two years in the age of the Sacred Heart of Jesus .

Society of Friends of the Poor

She was able to follow her thoughts of a Eucharistic crusade to evangelize the poor lower class on the basis of the mobilization mainly of pious lay people , because from 1890, contrary to expectations, she regained her ability to walk, she was able to visit churches and the poor and she made numerous trips within France, mainly to Places of pilgrimage like Lourdes . In 1895 she officially founded the lay organization “Society of Friends of the Poor” (Société des Amis des Pauvres) , which took its turn to the poor so seriously that pastors began to oppose the gathering of a kind of “rag proletariat” in their churches and complained to Cardinal Richard . In several meetings with the cardinal (1892, 1896) Thérèse insisted on the supernatural nature of her work, which Jesus himself called for, argued that the poor too had a soul that had to be saved, and prevailed. As a handout for society, she wrote the "Small Handbook of the Society of Friends of the Poor" (Petit Manuel de la Société des Amis des Pauvres) , divided society into women (Soeurs) and men (Frères) and added a sub-community of helpers ( Auxiliaires) who were close to society, but without taking the vows of chastity and poverty.

Spread of society, death and aftermath of the founder

In the climate of the anti-religious Third Republic , the society had to struggle badly, as some of its houses were closed, but new foundations were always found elsewhere, primarily in Paris, later also in other places in France and Belgium. Thérèse Durnerin died in 1905 at the age of 57. As early as 1908 the first of several biographies was published in which her work was recognized. By reading one of these works, Marthe Robin received decisive suggestions for founding her Foyers de Charité .

Works

  • L'hostie et le prêtre. Le coeur eucharistique de Jésus . Librairie St Paul, Paris 1888, 1910.

Literature (chronological)

  • Henri-Marie Hamez: Une hostie vivante. Thérèse Durnerin. Fondatrice de la Société des Amis des Pauvres (1848–1905) . Saint-Paul, Paris 1908.
  • Auguste Laveille (1856–1928): Thérèse Durnerin Fondatrice de la Société des Amis des Pauvres. D'après des documents inédits. 1848-1905 . Pierre Téqui, Paris 1922.
  • Jean Robin: Une Hostie vivante, Thérèse Durnerin, fondatrice de la Société des amis des pauvres. Vie écrite sur les documents de M. l'abbé Hamez . Desclée de Brouwer, Paris 1931.
  • André Rayez: DURNERIN (THÉRÈSE), 1848–1905 , in: Dictionnaire de Spiritualité  3, column 1840 ff.

Web links


Individual evidence

  1. ↑ The title mentioned in the literature could not be proven by the library.
personal data
SURNAME Durnerin, Thérèse
BRIEF DESCRIPTION French Roman Catholic mystic and founder of the Société des Amis des Pauvres
DATE OF BIRTH December 31, 1847
PLACE OF BIRTH Paris
DATE OF DEATH April 7, 1905
Place of death Paris