“Try to become good and worthy religious and you will be excellent teachers.”
Welcome to "North American Sanctity," a series on holy men and women, boys and girls, saints and those on the road to sainthood, from Canada, the United States, and Mexico. Some will be familiar, others less so; but all are inspiring!
By Kimberly Bruce
“With the protection of Jesus Christ, spider webs are stronger than walls, and, without his protection; the strongest walls are but spider webs.”
Spoken like Peter Parker! But these words predate the friendly neighborhood Spider-Man by a century, and were declared by Blessed Marie-Élisabeth Turgeon (feast day, Aug. 17), the foundress of the Sisters of Our Lady of the Holy Rosary.
Blessed Marie-Élisabeth, said Apostolic Nuncio Mgr. Luigi Bonazzi at her beatification, manifested the love and tenderness of Jesus “like a clear and flawless mirror, which knew how to welcome and reflect the light and life of Christ."
Teaching experience
Born Élisabeth Turgeon on Feb. 7, 1840, in Beaumont, Quebec, Canada, she was the fifth of 10 children. Élisabeth put her dreams of becoming a teacher on hold when her father died suddenly when she was 15. She chose instead to remain home with her mother to help educate her younger siblings.
At the age of 20, she was finally able to pursue her love for education and entered Laval Teachers’ College in Quebec City. Despite health issues, she earned her degree with distinction in 1862 and became principal a year later at a school in Saint-Romuald d’Etchemin. From there she went on to teach in the parish of Saint-Roch in Quebec City.
Suffering two brushes with death, Élisabeth was forced to take a year off. By school’s end in 1872, she quit her teaching job due to consistently poor health.
Élisabeth then prayed to St. Anne, the mother of the Virgin Mary, promising her that if she was healed, she would teach for free at the Basilica of Saint Anne de Beaupré, situated along the St. Lawrence River in Quebec.
To fulfill her promise, Élisabeth started teaching at St. Anne’s, but was soon approached by Bishop Jean Langevin of Rimouski, who wished for her to become director of a new community of teachers. Concerned about her precarious health, she declined the bishop’s offer twice until he sent a third letter insisting that she take the position.
Religious vows
Believing it to be God’s will, Élisabeth accepted, and in 1875 traveled north to Rimouski to head the Sisters of the Elementary Schools (later renamed the Sisters of Our Lady of the Holy Rosary.) This group of teachers was comprised of several young women including Élisabeth’s sister, Louise.
On Sept. 12, 1879, Élisabeth and 12 others accepted religious vows. Élisabeth, who was named their Mother Superior, also assumed her new religious name: Marie-Élisabeth.
Mother Marie-Élisabeth’s first mission was to open a private school in the poorer region of the Rimouski diocese. She told her Sisters, “Try to become good and worthy religious and you will be excellent teachers.”
Always modeling the virtues she wanted her Sisters to imitate, Mother Marie-Élisabeth was charitable, sweet, quick to forgive, harbored neither bitterness nor animosity, was silent when falsely accused, and remained peaceful. Though often in very poor health, she masked her suffering.
All for Jesus through Mary
A great proponent of devotion to the Blessed Virgin, Mother Marie-Élisabeth chose “All for Jesus through Mary” as their community’s motto. She encouraged her Sisters to rely on “our true Mother,” the “Queen of Virgins,” “to teach with you and for you, and your students will make great progress in knowledge and virtue.”
She taught her Sisters the importance of weighing one’s decisions against their conformance with God’s will. With complete trust and abandonment to God, she said, “Let us throw ourselves into the arms of the Divine Mercy, who wants only our spiritual good.”
The matter of accomplishing God’s will was addressed to St. Faustina by her spiritual director, Bl. Fr. Michael Sopoćko, who told her:
There are three degrees in the accomplishment of God’s will: in the first, the soul carries out all rules and statutes pertaining to external observance; in the second degree, the soul accepts interior inspirations and carries them out faithfully; in the third degree, the soul, abandoned to the will of God, allows Him to dispose of it freely, and God does with it as, He pleases, and it is a docile tool in His hands (Diary of Saint Maria Faustina Kowalska, 444).
Mother voiced to her Sisters that “Everything turns out for the best for those who seek the will of God.”
Need for teachers
On Aug. 17, 1881, Mother Marie-Élisabeth died at age 41 and was buried in the motherhouse in Rimouski.
The cause for her canonization was opened in 1989. Two years later, in 1991, 38-year-old Michel Boucher, a father of three, was miraculously healed from incurable cancer after calling upon Mother Marie-Élisabeth’s intercession for his healing. Mother Marie-Élisabeth was beatified on April 26, 2015.
Today, the Sisters of Our Lady of the Holy Rosary can be found in parishes in Quebec, the United States, Honduras, Peru, Guatemala, Nicaragua, and Lebanon.
Cardinal Gerald Cyrian, Quebec’s current Archbishop, expressed that the Church still needs teachers today like Mother Marie-Élisabeth. “God doesn’t choose people to do His work because they are capable, He makes those who choose Him capable,” he said.
Mother Marie-Élisabeth certainly chose God, as evidenced by her life’s work, her attitude, and her holy words of surrender: “My God and my Everything! All for your holy Love!”
Blessed Marie-Élisabeth Turgeon, pray for us!
Next in the series: Blessed Dina Bélanger, Sept. 4.
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