MARIANIST REFLECTION September 2008
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Marie Th�r�se de Lamourous
This week (September 14) we celebrated the anniversary of the death of the Venerable Marie Th�r�se Charlotte de Lamourous, lay foundress of the Family of Mary. Our partners at the North American Center for Marianist Studies have recently published A Spiritual Crucible: The Life of Mlle de Lamourous During the French Revolution by Benjamin Dougherty. Below is an excerpt (p.9) but you can find the entire essay here. This is only a small part of the way Marie Th�r�se said "Yes."
At one point during the Revolution, Th�r�se began sneaking into the offices of the Committee of Surveillance. She would pretend to empty wastebaskets and clean desks so that she could read the lists of people the police were going to be arresting. Then she would warn them to go into hiding or to leave town before they could be caught. It is impossible to know how many innocent and holy lives she saved acting as a spy for the underground. Had she been caught, she surely would have been guillotined. Playing up her role, she often chatted with the secretaries to make them less suspicious.
One day in the offices of the committee, a few of the men were bragging about how many anti-revolutionaries they had executed that day. Th�r�se, being overcome with grief at the loss of her friends, began to cry. One of the men noticed her crying and said, "Citizen, why do you bother yourself with crying? They are only worthless rascals!" Without skipping a beat she simply replied, "You men are made of tougher stuff than we women."
She herself was arrested one day and brought before a municipal court. The "trials" that were held in these courts bore little resemblance to what we in the United States understand as a trial. In most cases, the accused was brought before magistrates, a charge was read, and the accused was convicted and sentenced either to jail or death. In many cases, to be brought before a judge was the same as being guilty. Th�r�se was accused of associating with non-juring priests and being noble. Not wanting to respond to the charge, she requested permission to ask the judge a question. When he granted her request, she asked him what that mark on his cheek was. He replied, "Why it's a mole." She questioned further, "Where did you get it from?" "From my mother, of course," he replied. Th�r�se said, "So it is with my nobility, I got it from my mother too! And it's no fault of mine." The whole court, including the judge, broke into laughter, and the judge said, "You are a good woman! Leave, and do not be bothered."
Marie Th�r�se, who lived from 1754 to 1836, left her noble surroundings and spent much of her life as director of the Maison de la Mis�ricorde, a home for the rehabilitation of prostitutes in Bordeaux. She was known by her contemporaries the as "Saint of Bordeaux."
peace and love,
aj
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