MARY OF THE INCARNATION, Venerable. - In the world Maria Guyart, Ursuline mystic and missionary, b. at Tours on 28 Oct. 1599, d. at Québec on 30 Apr. 1672. Although drawn to contemplation from childhood (her first vision dates back to 1607), yielding to her father's will she married in 1617 the silk manufacturer Claude Joseph Martin, by whom she had a son, Claude Martin. Left a widow in Oct. 1619, she was able to devote herself more intensely to prayer, though for 11 more years she remained in the midst of active life, attending to business. After various ecstasies, in which she had mystical knowledge of the mysteries of the Trinity and of the Incarnation, after sufferings and transports of love, having reached the calm of a perfect union with God (1628), on 25 Jan. 1631 she entered the Ursuline convent of Tours, leaving her eleven-year-old son after painful hesitation.

In the octave of Christmas 1634 she had a dream that inflamed her spirit for the missions. She then begins to hear talk of Nouvelle France (Canada), enters into correspondence with the missionaries already on the spot, with certain Jesuits who were about to depart and with Mme de la Peltrie, and, after various vicissitudes, having embarked at Dieppe on 4 May 1639, she reaches Québec on 1 Aug. There, amid hardships and privations, her greatest outward activity of a mystical nature begins: she becomes the counselor and guide of the natives, of governors and of merchants. For the little Iroquois girls she founds, with Mme de la Peltrie, the "Séminaire" of St. Joseph; for herself and her sisters she founds a monastery, rebuilds it after a fire (1650), and for 18 years is its superior and animator. Wars, earthquakes, rebellions, bitterness and humiliations, she endured all with courage.

The cause of her beatification was introduced in 1877; the decree on the heroicity of her virtues is dated 10 July 1911.

The writings of M. dell'I. (the autobiography, the letters and the mystical writings) were revised and published by her son Claude Martin (Paris 1677-84), and with announced critical editions and a new biography by A. Jamet (4 vols., ibid. 1929-1939). The doctrine of M. dell'I. was the subject of discussion in the controversy over pure love (v.) between Fénelon and Bossuet.

Bibliography8 works

BIBL.: H. Bremond, Hist litt. du sentiment religieux en France, VI, Paris 1923, pp. 3-176; P. Renaudin, Une grande mystique française au XVIIe siècle: Marie de l'Incarnation, ibid. 1935; H. Cuzin, Du Christ à la Trinité d'après les expériences mystiques de M. de l'I., Lyon 1936; T.-L. Penido, La conscience religieuse, Paris (1936), ch. 5; H. Hatzfeld, Klassische Frauenmystik in Spanien und Frankreich, Münster 1936 (parallel between St. Teresa and M. dell'I.); L. Veuthey, L'ascension spirituelle de M. de l'I. et de Maria Bonaventura Fink, in Miscellanea Franc., 37 (1937), pp. 20-37; J. Klein, L'itinéraire mystique de la vén. mère M. de l'I., Paris 1938; P. Dudon, M. de l'I. et si Alphonse Rodriguez, in Revue d'ascét. e de mystique, 20 (1939), pp. 369-87.

Renata Orazi Ausenda

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Mary of the Incarnation, Venerable

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