Mother Yvonne-Aimée escapes from prison with the help of an angel

Synthèse :

Who was Mother Yvonne-Aimée de Malestroit?

Yvonne Beauvais was born on 16 July 1901 in Cossé-en-Champagne. As a child, her grandmother read her The Story of a Soul by Sister Thérèse of the Child Jesus (not yet beatified or canonised), a book that made her want to "become a saint". At age nine, she dedicated her life to Christ in a letter she wrote to him in her own blood. At the age of 21, during an illness, she met the Augustinian Hospitaller Sisters of Mercy in Malestroit (Brittany). On 5 July 1922, in her room in Malestroit, she had a mystical experience during which Jesus showed her his Cross and asked her: "Do you want to carry it?" It was at this time that the extraordinary graces and phenomena began. For a while, the bishop of Vannes refused to let her join the Augustinian nuns in Malestroit, fearing that she would have too much influence on the community. At the age of 26, she finally received permission to enter the monastery, under the name Sister Yvonne-Aimée de Jésus. A practical woman as well as a mystic, and a great organiser, at the age of 27 she launched the project for a modern clinic near the monastery, which opened in 1929. In 1932, she became mistress of novices and in 1935, she was elected superior of the Malestroit monastery.

Several bilocations during the war

During the Nazi occupation, Sister Yvonne-Aimée of Jesus treated wounded Germans, parachutists and Resistance fighters (especially those from the Saint-Marcel maquis) at the Malestroit clinic. But on 15 February 1943, she was in Paris. While she was there, she told Father Paul Labutte that she felt she was being followed: "For example, the other day I was walking down the street and I really had the impression that two men were following me from a distance. At one point I turned towards a shop window. They did the same as me. When I kept going, they kept going." She had a premonition that she was going to be arrested. All this was accompanied by deep anxiety: "I sometimes see demons at night." She was frightened and once, she put a small table in front of her to protect herself from an enemy that was invisible to us. Her face was marked with fear, even though she was not normally afraid."

On 16 February 1943, Sister Yvonne-Aimée was arrested in Paris by the Gestapo and held in the Cherche-Midi prison. Father Paul Labutte recounts that on that day, he came to Paris with Canon Boulard, who was chaplain to the Young Christian Farmers. He had been warned of Mother Yvonne-Aimée's arrest by a coded telegram from Sister Saint-Vincent-Ferrier (the director of the small Augustinian convent in Paris): "Yves in clinic with Aunt Germaine stop".

Father Paul Labutte arrived at Montparnasse station at 1pm and took the metro. Here is his account: "I turned round suddenly, without knowing why, and suddenly found myself face to face with Mother Yvonne-Aimée. She was in civilian clothes. She had a coat made of a kind of garnet red wool felt pulled up over her forehead and she was wearing glasses. She seemed in a hurry and worried. I was stunned and said to her: "You're here? They have released you?" We followed the flow of travellers and got on the metro. It was rush hour. The passengers were either sitting or standing and Yvonne-Aimée was standing next to me. I said to her in a low but happy voice: "So you've been released?" The conversation was difficult to sustain because I was in a cassock and I felt that most of the passengers were looking at us when they saw me talking to a woman. She whispered back,"No, I'm not released. I'm in prison. I'm being tortured. I'm in front of a wall and my head is in a kind of vice.""

Father Labutte immediately understood that she was in a state of "bilocation". "Then she tilted her head, raised it slowly and silently towards me and I saw her eyes as if fixed, in an ecstatic state with eyelids that didn't flutter. Then, to make sure I wasn't dreaming, I touched her and felt her body, alive and palpable. The metro arrived at Denfert-Rochereau station. Yvonne-Aimée, without even looking at me, got up as if she didn't know me and headed for the exit. I followed her with my eyes while she was in the crowd, then she seemed to dematerialise and disappear."

Father Labutte, overwhelmed by this vision, continued his journey and exited at another station. He tooked the turnstile and then headed for the exit. "Suddenly Mother Yvonne-Aimée was there, still in civilian clothes and looking frightened, and she said these words to me in a low voice: "Pray, pray. If you don't pray enough, I'll be sent to Germany this evening". Then she walked away and he didn't see her anymore.

Mother Yvonne-Aimée's miraculous escape from the Cherche-Midi prison

After this strange encounter, Father Labutte prayed very hard. He was well aware of his shortcomings and tendency to be distracted during prayer. He said the rosary, his breviary and then the litany of the saints. Then he prayed the Stations of the Cross. In short, he opted for quantity to make up for the deficient quality of his prayers. That evening, at 7.30pm, he arrived at the small Augustinian convent in Paris and went to see Sister Saint Vincent-Ferrier. He explained everything to the sister, who was overwhelmed. Father Labutte, exhausted, retired to his room.

It was about 9.10pm when, in the next room, he heard a very loud thud, as if someone had just jumped from a height and landed on the floor with both feet together. He hurried into the room. Mother Yvonne-Aimée was there, in the same civilian clothes. She had the same rubber boots she wore in the metro, but her hat and glasses were gone. Her hair was a mess. Father Labutte grabbed her by the wrists and she immediately began to panic: "Let go of me! Let go of me!" She struggled to free herself. "I soon realised that she didn't recognise me and she explained to me later that she had mistaken me for one of the prison torturers". The priest used gentle gestures and tried to calm her down. She regained consciousness: "Where am I? Where am I?" She looked right and left, astonished, and she said: "But it's my office!" and at last she recognised me. Then, with a motherly smile, she said to me: "But it's you Paulo? It's you!" Father Labutte could now hold her hands. She was physically there. He asked her what had happened and how she could have got in when the doors were closed.

She replied: "It was my angel who delivered me and brought me here. He grabbed me in the prison courtyard just as we were being put into groups to leave for Germany. He took advantage of the chaos that occurred when we were being gathered.
- Did you suffer a lot?
- Yes."

Father Labutte thought he should go and tell Sister Saint-Vincent-Ferrier who must be in the chapel because she wanted to spend the night in prayer. She was sitting on the stairs, crying at the thought that the reverend mother might be deported.

Father Labutte: "No, no, no! Look, she's back here. Go to her office, quick!" They found her lying on her bed. She was peacefully in a sort of ecstatic sleep, lying fully clothed in her bed. In the room, the floor was strewn with fresh flowers, arums, tulips and white lilacs. It would have taken at least two gardeners to bring these flowers in.

The similarity between her escape and that of Saint Peter in the Book of Acts 

The comparison between these two miraculous events is clear. In Acts we read: "Peter thus was kept in prison, but prayer by the Church was fervently being made to God on his behalf. On the very night before Herod was to bring him to trial, Peter, secured by double chains, was sleeping between two soldiers, while outside the door guards kept watch on the prison. Suddenly the Angel of the Lord stood by him and the cell was flooded with light. He tapped Peter on the side and awakened him, saying: "Get up quickly." And the chains fell from his wrists. Then the angel said to him, "Put on your belt and your sandals", which he did. Then he said to him, "Put your cloak on and follow me." Peter followed him out, not realizing that what was happening was real; he thought he was seeing a vision. They passed the first guard, then the second, and reached the iron gate leading into the city. Of its own accord, it opened in front of them. They went out and walked to the end of a street, then suddenly the angel left him. Then Peter came to himself and said, "Now I really know that the Lord has sent his angel and rescued me from the hands of Herod and from everything the Jewish people had been expecting." (Acts 12:5-11).

Mother Yvonne-Aimée's

After the war, Mother Yvonne-Aimée's body was worn down by the successive illnesses she had suffered, as well as by mental and spiritual suffering. She wore the decorations she has received, not for her own glory, but for the glory of God who saved her from all the dangers during the war.

On the evening of 3 February 1951, she died in Malestroit from a hemorrhagic stroke as she was preparing to leave for South Africa. She was 49 years old.

Six years later, her coffin was opened and her body, lying in 5 centimetres of water, was intact. She is still buried today in the small cemetery of the Augustines of Malestroit monastery.

In 2009, Bishop Raymond Centène of Vannes once again officially requested that the Vatican examine her case carefully with a view to her beatification.