Biography of mary magdalen postel church

Julie Frances Catharine Postel, the daughter of a rope manufacturer, was born at Barfleur in Normandy on November 28, After her elementary education, she received further training from the Benedictine nuns at Volognes. There she decided to devote her entire life to the service of God and her neighbor, and privately took the vow of chastity.

Born on Nov. 28, at Barfleur, France, St. Marie Magdalen Postel is remembered for sheltering fugitive priests during the tumult of the French Revolution, then educating girls.

Five years after she opened a school for girls in La Bretonne, the French Revolution broke out. During the persecution Saint Mary Magdalen Postel played a heroic part in helping the priests who were in hiding or in prison and in strengthening the faith of the loyal Catholics of Barfleur. She was authorized to keep the Blessed Sacrament in her house, and when conditions grew worse to carry the Blessed Sacrament on her person and even to administer Holy Viaticum to the dying in cases of emergency.

The Jacobins often suspected her, but she enjoyed the special protection of God and no harm came to her. After the storm had passed, Saint Mary Magdalen Postel helped to restore the Faith by catechizing young and old, and began to teach school once more at Cherbourg.

Marie-Madeleine Postel (28 November – 16 July ), born Julie Françoise-Catherine Postel, was a French Catholic professed religious and the founder of the Sisters of Christian Schools.

With the approval of the Vicar Louis Cabart, she and two other women established a religious community there in ; and two years later they and another who had joined them pronounced their vows. During the first thirty years, the new Franciscan sisterhood encountered many bitter disappointments and trials, but Mother Mary Magdalen, as Julie was now called, persevered courageously in her vocation.

The motherhouse of the congregation was transferred in from Cherbourg to the former Benedictine abbey of St Sauveur le Vicomte in Courtance; and in the Vicar General Delamare substituted, in place of the Third Order rule, that of St John Baptist de la Salle, the founder of the Christian Brothers. Henceforth the members of the community were called Sisters of Mercy of the Christian Schools.

During the last few years of her life, Mother Mary Magdalen saw her sisterhood expand and achieve great things. Mother Mary Magdalen was almost ninety years old when she died on July 16, Her sisterhood continued to grow and spread also to other countries, especially England and Italy. In it was established in Germany when four school teachers adopted the statutes of these sisters; but in this foundation became independent, with its motherhouse at Heiligenstadt.

The original French sisterhood received papal approbation in