BILLIART, MARIE-ROSE-JULIE, blessed. - Foundress of the Namur (v.), born of a humble family on 12 July 1751 at Cuvilly near Compiègne, diocese of Beauvais, died at Namur on 8 April 1816. In 1782 she lost the use of her legs through paralysis and recovered it miraculously only after twenty-two years. During the Revolution, having taken refuge at Amiens, she there met Maria Luisa Francesca Blin di Bourdon, of a noble and wealthy family; in 1803 she opened with her a home for abandoned orphan girls and a catechism school, to which B. devoted all her care, convinced of the fundamental importance of catechetical instruction. In 1805 the first nucleus of the Congregation was formed. But B. endured with the same unalterable serenity, in 1809, a trial harsher than her long physical sufferings, when, owing to the intrigues of an ecclesiastic and the misunderstanding of other persons, she and her sisters were expelled from the diocese of Amiens. The bishop of Namur received the community, and the institute continued to flourish and spread widely. B. was beatified on 13 May 1906.
Billiart, Marie-Rose-Julie, Blessed
BIBL.: V. CAMISARDI, Vita della beata G. B., fondatrice delle Suore di N. Signora, descritta secondo i processi, Rome 1906; T. Réjalot, La bienheureuse Julie B., 1906, 2nd ed. Namur 1922; M. Halcaut, Les idées pédagogiques de la bienheureuse mère Julie B., 3rd ed. Paris [n.d., but after 1914]; P. Renault, La perchese héroïque, Brussels [1938]. Claudia De Sanctis
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“BILLIART, MARIE-ROSE-JULIE, BEATA.” Enciclopedia Cattolica, vol. II (1949), p. 947. Azione Romana digital edition, https://azioneromana.com/article/billiart-marie-rose-julie-beata.