Soubiran, Marie-Thérèse de, Blessed

SOUBIRAN, Marie-Thérèse de, Blessed. - Born Sophie Augustine, foundress of the Society of Mary Help of Christians, b. at Castelnauadary (diocese of Carcassonne) on 16 May 1834, d. in Paris on 7 June 1889.

Raised piously under the guidance of her uncle, a priest, she founded in 1855, after good preparation at Ghent, a beguinage in her native town, in which she cared for poor and endangered girls, preserving them from evil; this stirred up against her such burning wrath among the wicked that they set fire to her institute. But it rose again and, under a new form more suited to the times, with the creation of a new Congregation, more modern, under the guidance of the Jesuit Father P. Ginhac, and it took the name Society of Mary Help of Christians.

The Institute spread very quickly, many activities were embraced, but the foundress was obliged in 1873 to leave her Congregation under the ill-founded accusation of having burdened herself with debts, compromising the reputation of her work. Although the true person responsible was another, the saint kept silent, nor did she defend herself, but embraced her cross, entering the monastery of Our Lady of Charity of the Refuge in Paris, remaining there until her death.

This soon brought to light the holiness of the foundress, whose body was solemnly transferred to the house from which she had been dismissed. The cause of beatification was introduced on 9 May 1934. She was beatified on 20 Oct. 1946. Feast on 7 June.

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