March 2, 2025 - "Saint Leonie Paradis"

 

Our saint was born Élodie Paradis on May 12, 1840 in a village in the province of Quebec.  The third of six children, she heard about the Marianites of the Holy Cross, a religious community founded in France that had recently arrived in Canada from a family friend who would become a Holy Cross Father.  At the age of fourteen she entered the novitiate of the Marianites and received the religious name of Sister Marie of Sainte Léonie.  She taught in various places in Quebec before she was sent to New York in 1862 where her religious congregation had agreed to staff an orphanage.  Eight years later she was asked to go to teach French and needlework at the community’s novitiate in Indiana (near the University of Notre Dame). In 1874 she was recalled to Canada to direct a team of postulants and novices at St. Joseph College in Memramcook, New Hampshire.  She felt drawn to offer domestic services in the colleges that were becoming more numerous in Canada and New England. 

 

Sister Marie of Sainte Léonie established a sewing workshop for young Canadian women who were interested in consecrated life.  The community evolved and on August 26, 1877, fourteen of the young women put on the religious habit. On May 31, 1880, the new community, the Sisters of the Holy Family, were recognized by the Holy Cross Fathers.  For almost twenty years, Mother Marie-Léonie (as she was then called), requested the bishop of St. John, New Brunswick, to recognize the Little Sisters of the Holy Family as an autonomous religious institute.  In 1895, some of the sisters were sent to serve in the diocesan seminary in Sherbrooke, Quebec. The Most Reverend Paul LaRocque, Bishop of Sherbrooke, welcomed the motherhouse and novitiate of the Little Sisters of the Holy Family, and approved the Institute on January 26, 1896.

 

Mother Marie-Léonie devoted herself to the work of educating and promoting the human and spiritual welfare of the poor and illiterate girls who were attracted to the community. She understood the importance of the service they offered to the diocesan colleges that were struggling to secure adequate personnel.  She traveled regularly to respond to new needs, to oversee the formation of her Sisters and to resolve the practical problems involved in the management of their communities. In her correspondence, advice on cooking, menu preparation, gardening and building maintenance is given along with advice on spirituality and health. When she died on May 3, 1912, there were thirty-eight active foundations of the Little Sisters of the Holy Family in Canada and the United States.

Mother Marie-Léonie was beatified in Montreal on September 11, 1984, by Pope Saint John Paul II during his visit to Canada.  On October 20, 2024, Pope Francis canonized her at St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome. 

 

Until next week,

Fr. John