Saint of the Day Online - St Colette

Saint of the day online, Wednesday, March 07, 2018

St Colette

St Colette who was bron on 13 January 1381 was a French abbess and the foundress of the Colettine Poor Clares, a reform branch of the Order of Saint Clare, better known as the Poor Clares. She is honored as a saint in the Catholic Church. Due to a number of miraculous events claimed during her life, she is venerated as the patron saint of women seeking to conceive, expectant mothers and sick children.

Colette was the daughter of a carpenter named DeBoilet at Corby Abbey in Picardy, France.

She received the Poor Clares habit from Peter de Luna, whom the French recognized as Pope under the name of Benedict XIII, with orders to reform the Order and appointing her Superior of all convents she reformed. Despite great opposition, she persisted in her efforts. She founded seventeen convents with the reformed rule and reformed several older convents.

She was reknowned for her sanctity, ecstacies, and visions of the Passion, and prophesied her own death in her convent at Ghent, Belgium. A branch of the Poor Clares is still known as the Collettines.

Currently (2011) outside France the Colettine nuns are found in Belgium, Germany, Ireland, Japan, Norway, the Philippines, Spain and throughout the United Kingdom and the United States.

According to legend, a local peasant woman gave birth to a stillborn child. In desperation, out of fear for the child's soul, the father took the baby to the local parish priest for baptism. Seeing that the child was already dead, the priest refused to baptize the body. When the man became insistent, out of frustration, the priest told him to go to the nuns, which he did immediately. When he arrived at the monastery, Mother Colette was made aware of his situation by the portress. Her response was to take off the veil given to her by the Pope, when he gave her the habit of the Second Order, and told the portress to have the father wrap the child's body in it and for him to return to the priest. By the time he arrived at the parish church with his small bundle, the child was conscious and crying. The priest immediately baptized the baby.

Colette was beatified 23 January 1740, by Pope Clement XII and was canonized 24 May 1807 by Pope Pius VII. She is invoked by childless couples desiring to become parents, and is also the patroness of expectant mothers, and sick infants.