Blessed Alix Le Clerc, encouraged by the Virgin Mary to found schools

Alix Le Clerc was a rich and beautiful young woman from Lorraine, who led a frivolous life before her conversion in her early twenties, after a vision of the Virgin Mary and a meeting with her village priest, Saint Peter Fourier. With Fourier, Alix founded a religious congregation dedicated to providing education to girls, especially those living in dire poverty, developing an innovative pedagogy. Alix took the name of "Mother Teresa of Jesus" and is also known as "Mother Alix". She died on 9 January 1622 in Nancy, in the monastery she had founded in 1617, the first of her order. Many new free schools for girls were founded on the model she developed, throughout Lorraine and later elsewhere in France and the world.

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Reasons to believe:

Alix was not born a saint. Her early life was worldly and occupied with social amusements, not by spiritual questions.

Her definitive conversion followed a time of reflection, and especially a vision of the Virgin Mary during a mass, which confirmed her vocation as a religious and teacher that she was beginning to sense. After this supernatural encounter, she began sharing the life of the poorest people of her time and never looked back.

There was no pretense or pre-planning about her conversion. In fact, because of her choices, Alix drew the wrath of her social circle, particularly her family, who did not understand her. Not only did she gain nothing from this change, but she was now subject to fierce criticism from all sides.

With the help of Saint Peter Fourier, Alix founded a religious congregation whose charitable project was highly innovative and visionary for the times: to provide a free and top quality education to the poorest girls.

The founders of the very secular and anticlerical French Third Republic unanimously applauded Alix's work. For instance, French statesman Jules Ferry, notable for his anticlerical education policy, declared that Alix Le Clerc's congregation had forever marked "the birth of primary education in Lorraine", constituting "the birth certificate of girls' education in France".

Alix's genius was confirmed by the fact that the congregation was extremely prolific. In 1789, it had 84 monasteries and 4,000 nuns; 31 were still active in 1897, despite the anticlerical revolutionary period. Today, the Notre-Dame congregation is present in some forty countries, including Brazil, Vietnam, Congo, Hong Kong, Mexico, etc.

Throughout these years of activity, Alix was accompanied by a saint, Peter Fourier, whose spiritual and doctrinal exemplariness, as well as his inexhaustible commitment to the poorest, is strongly established.

The ecclesiastical hierarchy has always approved and supported this teaching congregation: in 1603, Cardinal Charles de Lorraine gave his approval to the congregation "of the Blessed Virgin Mary", supported in 1628 by Pope Urban VIII. Alix was beatified by Pope Pius XII in 1947, and her canonisation process is currently underway.

After her death, thousands of faithful from all walks of life flocked to her monastery in Nancy for three days without interruption, to pay homage to Le Clerc and her work, such was her status as a saint during her lifetime.

Posthumous miracles, including inexplicable cures, were reported by several reliable witnesses, and recorded under oath by representatives of the Ducal House of Lorraine.

The location of Alix's remains was lost during the French Revolution, but in 1950 her coffin was providentially found in the cellar of a building in Nancy, by young people setting up a concert venue. The relics, which had remained untraceable for 160 years, were authenticated after a rigorous historical investigation, and then transported to Nancy Cathedral in 2007.

Summary:

Alix Le Clerc was born on 2 February 1576 in Remiremont, in the Vosges (Duchy of Lorraine), which at the time was not yet a French province. Her family occupied an important social position. Her father, Jean Le Clerc, a bourgeois merchant, was a prominent municipal official. Alix's mother, Anne, came from an old Épinal family. An only child, Alix had a carefree and comfortable upbringing. In her teens, she was a beautiful and vivacious girl who loved dancing and music: "I had so much company, vanity and youth. I loved to dance", she recalled a few years after her conversion.

At the age of 18, her family moved to Mattaincourt, a small village where her father hoped to develop his business. As a young woman who loved parties and fine clothes, she didn't yet know that her life would take a new turn there, and that the saintly village priest would help her find her vocation.

This parish priest of Mattaincourt was the future Saint Peter Fourier (1565 - 1640), an Augustinian priest, with whom she would have a long friendship lasting twenty-five years. At his side, she gradually learned about the reforms introduced by the Council of Trent (1545-1563), of which Peter was a key player (he set up a network of aid organisations for the poorest people and a soup kitchen), as well as the importance of free education for all, starting with the underprivileged. She became aware, for the first time, of the great social inequalities of her time. The lack of education among the poor shocked her: "I kept thinking that we needed to establish a new house for girls to do all the good that could be done in it".

Three years later, when a sudden illness confined her to bed, her only reading material was a devotional book. From the reading and reflection she was able to do while recuperating from her illness, she began to think about the reality of God's existence and a possible religious vocation. Once she was back on her feet, she went to Mass in the Mattaincourt church. There, she had an experience that left a lasting impression on her: the Virgin Mary appeared to her and, smiling, encouraged her in her vocation as a teacher. This was a moment of deep conversion for Alix. Over the following weeks, to win the trust of the poorer people she spoke to, she gave up her expensive clothes and started wearing peasant clothes. Her family was furious.

Supported and accompanied by Saint Peter Fourier, she persuaded four of her friends to join her in serving God by educating poor young girls. They all agreed, with the support of the parish priest of Mattaincourt, to give their lives to God and, to do so, to follow a religious rule of life and to devote their life to teaching. Alix recalled: "I was happy to withdraw from a world that bored me without knowing why."

A few months later, and despite Alix's young age (she was only twenty-two at the time), the first free school for destitute girls was opened in the fall of 1598. But Alix's father, sensitive to the mockery of his own people about his daughter's behaviour, ordered her to leave the fledgling community and go to a convent in Ormes (France, Vosges). At the same time, two noble ladies took on the task of helping Alix's friends settled and start their mission in Poussay (France, Vosges). All of the nuns in Alix's convent were from lower social classes, while the Poussay chapter was made up exclusively of aristocratic women: it was not an easy mix... Madame d'Apremont, one of the ladies of Poussay, persuaded Alix to move to Mattaincourt instead, in a house she had just bought. It was a providential offer: Saint Peter Fourier, the village priest, was delighted to learn of the sisters' new location and assured everyone that he would vouch for Alix's community and provide spiritual direction.

Soon, houses were opened all over Lorraine: in Nancy, Pont-à-Mousson, Verdun, Bar-le-Duc, Mirecourt, Épinal, etc. Alix regularly visited these "schools of Our Lady" and tried to make improvements for the well-being and faith of all the young girls. She placed her foundations under the protection of the Virgin Mary. In 1617, Alix took her first vows and received the name of "Mother Teresa of Jesus" (from the famous Carmelite founder).

Alix's activity was ceaseless: she wrote spiritual texts for her sisters in religion, administered the congregation, taught classes, prayed for hours on end, day and night, frequently took advice from Saint Peter Fourier, and kept up a correspondence with the political and religious elite of her time. The foundress signed each of her letters: "May God be your complete love."

At the same time, Peter Fourier made the existence and innovative importance of the new congregation known to all the clergy in Lorraine. He was the first to inform the bishop of Toul (France), Jean des Porcelets de Maillane. He then informed the primate of Lorraine, who in turn decided to speak to Rome. Cardinal Charles de Lorraine signed the act of approval on 8 December 1603. In 1628, Pope Urban VIII gave his approval to the congregation.

In the meantime, Alix, exhausted, gave up her soul to God on 9 January 1622. A compact crowd came to pay homage to the deceased holy woman, almost without interruption.

On the eve of the French Revolution, the work comprised 84 monasteries with 4,000 nuns. When Peter Fourier was canonised in 1897, there were still 31 monasteries (and as many schools) in Europe. The sisters, who became the Canonesses of Saint Augustine of the Notre-Dame Congregation in 1962, are now present in some 40 countries around the world and on four continents: Europe (Belgium, France, Great Britain, Italy, Netherlands, Slovakia, Hungary); America (Brazil and Mexico); Africa (Democratic Republic of the Congo) and Asia (China and Vietnam) with its headquarters in Rome.

Patrick Sbalchiero

Beyond reasons to believe:

Through her writings, her friendship with Saint Peter Fourier and her educational and charitable work, Alix Le Clerc is a model of sanctity that has been shining far beyond the 17th century: in 2017, her congregation had 391 nuns in 80 communities, and today, thousands of people can say that their life has been touched and transformed by Mother Alix's visionary intuitions.

Going further:

Blessed Alix Le Clerc, by Margaret St. L. West, Douglas Organ (January 1, 1947)

More information:

Albert Gandelet, La Vie de la mère Alix Le Clerc. Foundress, first mother and nun of the order of the Congregation of Notre-Dame, 1882. Reprinted by Hachette-BNF, 2013.
Béatrice Beaumarais and Cécile Jacquerye, Alix Le Clerc. Aller au bout de ses rêves, Fleurus-Mame, 2014.
In the Guide to Saints on the Hozana website, the article: " Bienheureuse Alix Le Clerc: vie, fondation et prière ".
As part of the Sedifop conferences on the theme of "Imitating Christ", Father Denis Beligné's video conference on Saint Pierre Fourier and Blessed Alix Le Clerc.
Marie-Alexia Nguyen, Prier 15 jours avec Alix Le Clerc, fondatrice de la Congrégation Notre-Dame, Éditions Nouvelle Cité, 2019.