Subj : March 4th - Bl. Placida Viel To : All From : rich Date : Tue Mar 03 2020 07:48:08 From: rich March 4th - Bl. Placida Viel d. 1877 Victoria EULALIA Jacqueline VIEL, who was to become second superior general of the Sisters of the Christian Schools, was born in the Norman village of ValVacher in 1815, the 8th child of a farmer. The only schooling she had herself was 7 years at a sort of dame's scho= ol in the near-by town of Quettehou. She was serious and shy by disposition, leading the quiet ordered life of a farmer's daughter = and housekeeping for her brother until she was seventeen, when she went on a visit to her aunt, who was a member of St. Mary Magdalen Postel's community at Saint-Sauveur-le-Vicomte. Victoria was so impressed by what she saw there that she offered herself to the community and was accepted, receiving the name of Placida at her clothing. Mother Mary Postel was then nearly 80, and by the end of Sister Placida's noviciate had decided that this young sister was the one most likely to succeed herself at the head of the community. Placida was therefore sent for a short period of intensive training to the normal-school in Argentan; on her return she was set to teach in the boarding-school, and the foundress quietly initiated her into the duties and responsibilities of administration, even to the extent of sending her to open new houses. In five years' time Placida was mad= e novice-mistress; but this was soon interrupted by her being sent to Paris to beg funds for the restoration of the abbey church at Saint-Sauveur and to do other important convent business. On July 16, 1846 St. Mary Magdalen Postel died, and at the ensuing general chapter of the Sisters of the Christian Schools Sister Placida was chosen in her place. Her aunt, Sister Mary, had expected to be the choice; and although the new superioress gave her a maximum of authority and responsibility, Sister Mary, who had already shown hostility to her niece, was the source of much worry and unpleasantness to Mother Placida for the next ten years. Indeed, she stayed at the mother-house as little as possible so long as her aunt lived, directing her society from the rough winding highways and byways of central and western France=E2=80=9D which she traversed so often collecting funds and on other business of the rapidly-growing convents: notably the getting of official civil recognition, a long and wearisome business, which once took her on a mysterious secret visit to the Count de Chambord in Vienna. Mother Placida directed the institute for 30 years, and it was a period of great expansion: orphanages, nursery-schools, workrooms and free elementary schools were opened, one of the largest and best-loved foundations being the orphanage of the Holy Heart of Mary in Paris, where by 1877 there were 500 children being looked after; and the foundress's undertaking of the rebuilding of the great church at th= e mother-house was carried to a triumphant conclusion. Cardinal Guibert, Archbishop of Bordeaux, speaking of the state of France in the 1870s echoed what had been said of Bl. Anne Javouhey, and remarked, =E2=80=9CI kn= ow only one man capable of restoring order in France. He is at Saint-Sauveur-leVicomte, and his name is Mother Placida.=E2=80=9D In readin= g of her life and achievements one gets an impression of great charm and good-humour, and of quietness and confidence in her determination that what St. John Baptist de la Salle had done for boys should be spread wider yet among girls; 36 poor-schools were opened in Normandy--and Les ordonnances de Louis XIV was abolished as a reading-book for beginners, or for anyone else. Bl. Placida's life was of the simplest from every point of view. We read of no great spiritual trials or mystical graces; but occurrences to all seeming miraculous were not wanting. These and other things she consistently attributed to the intercession in Heaven of Mother Postel, the preliminary steps towards whose beatification she took. Bl. Placida herself died on March 4, 1877, being only 62 years old; and she was beatified in 1951. During the time she was at the head of the Sisters of the Christian Schools their convents in France had risen from 37 to 105, and their religious from 150 to over 1000. See, in French, D. Meunier, Une gerbe de merveilles (1931); L. Canuet, Bonne M=C3=A8re Placide (1925) and the biography by P. de Crisenoy (1943); in English, Bl. Placide Viel (1951), by S[ister] C[allista). Cf. also lives of St. Mary M. Poste1 (July 16). <><><><> Whoever will come after Me, let him deny himself =E2=80=94Matt. 16:24 "The measure of our advancement in the spiritual life should be taken from the progress we make in the virtue of mortification; for it should be held as certain that the greater violence we shall do ourselves in mortification, the greater advance we shall make in perfection" --St. Jerome When St. Francis Borgia heard it said that anyone was a saint, he used to answer, "He is, if he is mortified" In this way he himself became so great a saint; for he exercised himself in mortification to such a degree that only that day seemed to him truly wretched in which he had not undergone some mortification, either bodily or spiritually. When a young monk once asked an aged saint why, among so many who aim at perfection, so few are found perfect, he replied, "Because in order to be perfect it is necessary to die wholly to one's own inclinatio= ns, and there are few who arrive at this." (Taken from the book "A Year with the Saints" March - Mortification) <><><><> Mary, Mother of the Unborn Jesus, Mary and Joseph, I love you very much, I beg you to spare the life of the unborn child that I have spiritually adopted who is in danger of abortion. ( Fulton J. Sheen ) --- NewsGate v1.0 gamma 2 * Origin: News Gate @ Net396 -Huntsville, AL - USA (1:396/4) .