World

SAINT PROFILE: THERESE COUDERC

1805–1885; Feast: September 26

By CATHOLIC NEWS SERVICE     9/27/2016

Born to a French farm family, Marie-Victoire Couderc joined a new religious teaching order, but was sent to manage a mountain hostel for women pilgrims at the shrine of St. John Francis Regis. It became a successful retreat house under her guidance, and the order split into a teaching ministry, the Sisters of St. Regis, and a retreat ministry, the Congregation of Our Lady of the Cenacle. Mother Therese was superior of the Cenacle sisters until 1838, when Jesuit advisers began replacing her with a succession of wealthy women. She lived out her days as an ordinary nun, suffering deafness and painful arthritis at the end. She wrote that β€œthe surrendered soul has found paradise on earth,” and was canonized in 1970.