Blessed Mary of the Incarnation

Religious Foundress
(1599–1672)

Blessed Mary of the Incarnation was born Marie Guyart on October 28, 1599, in Tours, France. From childhood she was marked by an intense interior life and an unusual capacity for prayer. At the age of seventeen she married Claude Martin, a silk merchant, with whom she had one son. When her husband died after just two years of marriage, Marie was left a young widow of nineteen with an infant child.

She managed her brother-in-law's business for several years with great competence, all while deepening her mystical life. She experienced a profound conversion and mystical espousals with Christ, and eventually felt an irresistible call to religious life. In 1631, after entrusting her son Claude to the care of her sister, she entered the Ursuline convent in Tours and took the name Marie de l'Incarnation.

God soon made known to her His will that she should go to New France to evangelize the indigenous peoples of Canada. In 1639, with two other Ursulines and some lay companions, she sailed to Quebec. There she founded the Ursuline monastery, the first school for girls in North America. She mastered several Algonquin and Iroquois languages, compiled dictionaries and catechisms in those tongues, and laboured tirelessly to bring the faith to the native peoples.

Her son Claude, who had become a Benedictine monk, maintained a remarkable spiritual correspondence with his mother. Her letters, which fill twelve volumes, are a treasure of French mystical literature. She died in Quebec on April 30, 1672. Pope John Paul II beatified her in 1980.