MARIA de'L'INCARNAZIONE, blessed. – Carmelite, in the world Barbe Avrillot, born in Paris on 26 February 1566, died at Pontoise on 18 April 1618. She married (1582) Pierre Acarie, a counsellor at the Court of Accounts, and had six children by him; her three daughters became Carmelites.
Converted to fervor in 1588, she was often carried away in ecstasy, and it is known from her confessors, Fr. Benedetto di Canfield, Cardinal de Bérulle and Fr. Coton, that she bore the stigmata. M.’s mystical life is characterized by the absence of any concern for her own grace and by a particular gift for the direction of souls.
Although attending to her family, Mme Acarie radiated her influence throughout the high society of her time. “Of the hearths kindled under the reign of Henri IV, none equals the hôtel Acarie in splendor, intensity, and radiance” (H. Bremond). For 30 years M. was one of the most listened-to authorities in spiritual matters: she directed the extraordinary religious ferment that took place around her. She prepared the charitable works of s. Vincenzo de' Paoli; she persuaded her cousin M.me de Sainte Beuve to found the Ursulines of France (1608); she assisted in the reform of the Benedictine monasteries; she watched over the newly founded Congregations of Fr. Gallemant at Aumale and Pontoise; she organized the Congregation of Ste Geneviève, from which the Carmelite Order of France would emerge. Warned by an apparition of s. Teresa, she introduced the reformed Carmel into France (1603), with Bérulle (v.); she therefore directed the efforts of Jean de Quintanadoine and secured from the princess de Longueville the support of the French court; she provided the fledgling Carmel with its first recruits, selected and trained by her herself. One of these Carmels, that of Dijon, would be the cenacle in which the sanctity of Giovanna F. de Chantal would blossom.
Widowed in 1613, M.me Acarie entered (1614) the Carmel of Amiens as a lay sister; from there she was sent to that of Pontoise. She was beatified on 5 June 1791. Feast day: 18 March. Her Lettres were published by Richadeau (2 vols., Tournai 1876).