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Marguerite of the Holy-Sacrament (1619-1648) The Spouse of the Infant King Innocence, purity, simplicity ...
These are the virtues that Marguerite of the Holy Sacrament promised to those
who would contemplate the mystery of Jesus in his childhood. Our world, so
complicated, so agitated, opens to the peace that comes from the Crib which
Jesus reveals the secret: "Suffer little children, and forbid them not,
to come unto me: for of such is the kingdom of heaven" (Mt 19, 14). 1637. After
twelve years of marriage, King Louis XIII and Anne of Austria still have no children.
Marguerite of the Holy Sacrament, in the depths of her monastery of Beaune, prays for France. But one stormy night, the King
took refuge in the Louvre where the Queen stays. So was the future Louis XIV
conceived. |
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“Consider the Child Jesus in the Crib, small and
helpless, who is giving himself entirely to you”. Sr. Marguerite of the Holy-Sacrament |
But the young Carmelite will remind the world that the real king is
not the Sun-King, but the Christ ! She, whose size
will never exceed that of a twelve year old girl, is chosen, in time of war
and misery, to spread the radiance of the spirit of childhood; because from
the Crib to the Cross, the Little King of Grace to the King crowned with
thorns, Jesus wishes to reign over our hearts. |
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A founder of six
months February 7th, 1619 in Beaune,
Jeanne Bataille, wife of Pierre Parigot,
gave birth to her fifth child. She will have two more babies. This deeply Christian couple lives
comfortably from their land and vines revenues. The little Margaret was
baptized on the same day. Six months later, an important event occurs: the
nuns of the Carmelite convent of Dijon, founded in 1605, after many efforts
and difficulties, opened a Carmelite convent in Beaune.
The Canon who yields to the Carmelite the Saint-Etienne Priory is none other
than the great uncle of Margaret. Thus he poses a condition to this transfer:
that his niece is to be received at the monastery, when she is old enough, as
a "founder"! Just like weddings, which were arranged, so are prepared vocations.
Marguerite could rebel from being intended to the cloister! Yet the Holy
Spirit will fall upon this child's soul and precociously will lead her to a
surprising spiritual maturity. She is gentle and docile, graceful, and to
these natural gifts is to be added a growing piety. At the age of five the
Holy-Sacrament attracts her like a magnet and she made to God, in his secret
heart, the offering of herself. Sometimes, the cold seizes her so much that she thinks fainting in the
church, but the Holy Spirit covers her with a gentle heat allowing her to
continue her prayer. Early too, and supernatural, is her vibrant and
tenderness attraction for the poor, so many in these times of wars and
epidemics. She accompanies her mother in her visits to the sick and overcomes
her reluctance by changing soiled dressings. The destitution of Jesus that
she contemplates in the crib leads her to the disgust of wealth, fine clothes
and fine foods. |
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"Draw on the treasures of
my Childhood; nothing will be refused." Jesus to Sr. Margaret |
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Not to show our
suffering Everything seems to smile Marguerite: slender, a thin face, a lovable
character, a delightful smile, she charms all those who know her. But it
suffers from fits of melancholy, sadness; she sees monsters, hear cries. Her fits of convulsions makes her mother cry of anxiety.
Each time she brings her in front of the Holy Sacrament. From this nervous
instability, Marguerite will never heal completely. In the middle of the worst moral and physical suffering, Marguerite
keeps peace and serenity. She resists the temptations and assaults of
despair; her rescue is prayer, day and night. She writes at the age of ten
this surprising reflection which explains her even temper: When Good God
sends us sufferings, we must strive to hide them in us and not show them to
others that are not supposed to carry them. The death of Madame Parigot makes an abrupt
end to the childhood of Marguerite. On her deathbed, her mother consoles her
and promises her that she will be a Carmelite. Marguerite, shattered, runs to
the church Notre Dame. Prostrated before the statue of the Virgin Mary, she
begs her to replace her mother and understands in her heart that she is
answered. Enclosed in Jesus'
childhood The evening of the funeral, Margaret, in her mourning dress, is led by
her father to the Carmelite convent. Despite her grief, she was immediately
filled with joy. She is welcomed by Mother Elizabeth of the Trinity,
Prioress, and Mother Mary of the Trinity, mistress of the novices. For two
hours, the resident of eleven and a half will discuss with the two holy women
with passionate comments about the Blessed Sacrament. The very next day she
is admitted to do her first communion and hear Jesus call her: My little
spouse. This girl, whose wisdom and seriousness stood out from the other children,
adapts very quickly to the life of the community. She discovers the devotion
to the Infant Jesus, prosperous in Carmelite convent since Saint Teresa of
Avila and advocated by the French School, then booming. Marguerite endorses,
without difficulty, the bérulien vocabulary: The
Child Jesus confined me in the twelve years of his childhood. But once the excitement of the first discoveries fell, the temptations
took up again. She sees the hand of the devil, ugly animals, plagues to come;
she loses sleep and cannot take any food while atrocious convulsions twist
her limbs, followed by long slumbers, crises of fears and tears. The doctors
speak of epilepsy, yet intrigued by the lucidity, modesty and gentleness of
which the young patient did not lose. On June 6th, 1631, at the age of
twelve, exhausted and thinner, Margaret received the habit of a novice; two
days later she is trepanned, in all conscience sitting on a little straw
chair. She thinks about the crowning with thorns, exhales a sigh and is
docile, while doctors who seek a tumor in the skull discovered a brain
perfectly healthy. The crises follow one another until July 31st where the
apparition of the Infant Jesus, sitting on the edge of a well, healed
Marguerite. |
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The Spirit of Childhood is a condition in which we have to live from
day to day. Gaston de Renty |
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The spirit of
childhood and the grace of the Cross Marguerite can begin her novitiate. In August, Jesus
invites her to be participant in the
condition of his childhood. During six months she will be like in a perpetual paradise. Her
sisters sees her sometimes washed with
purity, embalmed with chastity,
her face shining with dazzling white, abstaining for a time from food. It is
her virtues that particularly strike her companions and her superiors: a
humility often put to the test, an obedience that takes over her whole and
independent nature. On February 7th 1632, Jesus encouraged her to penance: You must now learn the science of my Cross.
Such as Therese of Lisieux two centuries later,
Margaret is charged of the weight of sinners. Diseases, sufferings and
infirmities will no longer leave her. Warned of the sins and the disorders
that occur in a monastery or in the person of a priest, she feels bitterness
and anxiety, she suffers for the proud and the unclean, for the vain souls,
for the lazy and blasphemers. It is during the Epiphany of 1632 that she signs her act of
consecration: The spouse of the Holy
Infant Jesus in his crib. She does her solemn profession on June 24th,
1635; Jesus appears to her in the form of as a child, giving her ring, crown
and robe with this promise: I will
refuse nothing to your prayers. The year 1636 is terrible for France: wars, invasions, sieges. Jesus
confides to Margaret: It is through the
merits of the mystery of my childhood that you will overcome all
difficulties. Margaret then creates the "Family of the Holy Infant Jesus"
whose "domestics" will live the virtues of Childhood and will
recite the Little Crown. This devotion soon leaves the limits of the monastery. The enemy
army withdraws and Burgundy will experience two centuries of peace. |
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“I have chosen you to make known to men how much I
love them and how much I deeply grieve their ingratitude”. Jesus to Sr.
Marguerite |
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The arrival of the
little King December 15th, 1637, while all France pray for the birth of
an heir to the throne of Louis XIII, Marguerite is informed of the pregnancy
of the queen, before Anne of Austria herself! Now King of France, Louis XIV
will come to the Carmelite convent of Beaune in
1658 to thank the sisters for their prayers. But that is another king that
will make his entrance to the monastery. Indeed, the fame of Margaret reaches the ears of a Norman noble man,
the Baron Gaston de Renty. He goes to the Carmelite convent in 1643 without
seeing Marguerite who lives more and more a life of seclusion. He sends her,
in November, the statue that will become the beloved Little King of Grace. Due to a misunderstanding, this statue arrives, humbly, with the
mail: I was very surprised, writes
Mr. de Renty a month later, when I
learned that the little Jesus was brought by the Post Office. My God! How is it that everything has not
been broken to be shaken during nearly a hundred leagues! A few years before Marguerite had the inspiration to build a chapel dedicated
to the Infant Jesus: it will be consecrated on Christmas Day 1639. The Little
King’s arrival coincides with the death of Mother Marie of the Trinity in
December 1643. In 1644, Gaston de Renty meets Marguerite: The Son of God did such close connection
of these two souls that it was only one heart and one spirit. This holy
man who is the spiritual director of the prioress, Mother Elizabeth of the
Trinity, puts himself in the hands of the young Carmelite 25 years: I abandon myself to you, my dearest sister,
in order that you form me according to the desire of your holy Husband. |
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“When all will be
consumed, the Infant Jesus will draw me to him” In March 1648, she is moved to the infirmary from which she will stay
until the end. While her body is an abyss of suffering, her soul is an abyss
of peace and joy: It seemed that this
was not a mortal creature, but a soul already regenerated by glory. Until
the end, she thanks her sisters and consoles them: You will always find me in the Holy Sacrament. She dies May 26th
in the morning. Then come to Carmelite monastery a procession of faithful and
a huge mail to pay a last tribute to the little
saint. Gaston de Renty, who will follow soon his soul sister, writes: God took to heaven that the earth was not
worthy of possessing. Saint John-Eudes saw
Marguerite shortly before her death: I
cannot express the respect and devotion that the Holy Infant Jesus printed in
our hearts in the light of his holy spouse; we have already experienced
several effects of his charity, spiritual and bodily. Indeed, granting
and miracles follow one another. Margaret was declared Venerable in 1873. |
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The Little Crown of the Infant Jesus Sister Marguerite received the inspiration in 1636. It consists of a
rosary of fifteen grains. In the first three, we say an Our Father in honor of Jesus, Mary and Joseph. Of the following
twelve one recites a Hail Mary
while meditating on the mysteries of the Childhood of Jesus: the Incarnation,
the stay of the Word in the womb of Mary, the Nativity, his home in the
stable, his Circumcision, Epiphany, the Presentation at the Temple, the
flight into Egypt, the return from Egypt, the hidden life in Nazareth, his
travels with Joseph and Mary, his stay at the Temple among the doctors. As Marguerite affirmed in her pure and confident faith: The Holy Infant Jesus has more care of our
souls and our needs than we would have ourselves. |
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The Infant Jesus of Beaune The "Little King of Grace" is one of three main miraculous
"Infant Jesus" with the Santo
Bambino of Rome and the Infant Jesus of Prague. Offered to Sister Marguerite by the Baron de Renty, this wooden
statuette, 58 centimeters high, painted and articulated, can be dressed in
sumptuous clothes coming from all over the world. The devotion to the Little King's spread rapidly and its influence was
particularly apparent for difficult births, healing of newborns, trials,
vocations, marriages and "good death". During the French Revolution, the expelled nuns, thanks to courageous
friends, put him away in a wooden cabinet that can still be seen today. He
was worshiped in secret until 28 December 1878 when, at the instigation of
the priest of Saint-Nicolas, a solemn feast in the presence of the Bishop of
Dijon marked the resumption of the public worship of the Little King. Many
accounts show us that He continues his mission of mercy and protection, as
assured Sister Marguerite: A straw of
his crib, a strip of swaddling, this is enough to keep the enemy at bay. |
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The great century of the souls France, in the early seventeenth century, was covered with luminous
dew. I speak of this century in which, stronger than plague and hunger, the
grace of God was manifested. The Court itself did not escape this contagion
of holiness that Bremond called "the mystical invasion". Mentioning
it leads us to a veritable litany of saints, martyrs of love, stigmatized
persons, ecstatics and visionaries, people with social status or humble
shepherdesses. The saints are given to us so that through them we receive the
gifts and charismas which were theirs, so that we continue their mission,
whether hidden or apostolic. After the Council of Trent (1563), the Church underwent a period of
uncertainty where all kinds of deviance were manifested, but also an
authentic work of the Holy Spirit, regeneration, a spiritual seething perhaps
unequaled. The Second Vatican Council announces a new Pentecost. This
Pentecost was called the Pentecost of love and prophesied as end-time by the
last great figure of the seventeenth century, St. Louis Marie Grignon de Montfort. The end of the great century of
souls gave rendez-vous to the centuries of the
little souls whose great theologian is Therese. |
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Gaston de Renty (1611-1649) Noble lords and ladies of that time were not just finding funds; they
would sometimes heal themselves the sick. So Gaston de Renty he gave up his
titles of nobility and all his possessions to look after the poor. He
transformed into a hospital his castle of Beny, in
the diocese of Bayeux, and, with his wife and two daughters, he served the
poor on his knees. He became a true soul brother
of Sister Marguerite who yet dissuaded him to leave the world for a very
retired religious life. Instead, she encouraged him to take care of his
family and his charity work, especially the Company of Saint-Sacrament
intended to promote piety among the high society. It was at Christmas 1643 that he offered to the Carmelite convent of Beaune the statue of the "Little King of Grace"
probably carved by him, a sign of his devotion to the spiritual childhood: The Childhood of Our Lord is a state where
we must die to everything and where the soul lives in abandonment, looking
neither ahead nor behind. He died of exhaustion at the age 37 by helping victims of epidemics
during the terrible winter of 1649. |
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