Mère Marie of the Ursulines

The early history of Quebec, "the rocky perch of France and of the Faith" in the New World, is incomplete without the story of M re Marie. Called from a young age to a religious life, she received her first mystical experience at the age of seven. After a brief marriage cut short by the death of her husband, Marie was accepted into the Ursuline convent in Tours in 1631. Upon receiving further mystical experiences depicting her in a foreign land, she received permission to join the Jesuit mission in Quebec. There she founded, in 1639, the first convent school in North America, where she lived for thirty-three years, moving heroically but always calmly through the turbulent, harsh environment that was New France. To our great good fortune, this truly remarkable woman found a worthy biographer in Agnes Repplier, who tells M re Marie's story movingly, displaying her special gifts of accuracy of phrase, urbanity of manner, and incisiveness of mind, which won her renown as a gifted essayist in her own right. In M re Marie of the Ursulines we are blessed doubly: the story of an inspiring Catholic religious, told by a consummate storyteller.