Marie-Celine of the Presentation

Sister Marie-Celine of the Presentation - 1878 - 1897 - (German Jeanne Castang) - Clarisse.

Life

Jeanne Germaine Castang was born the May 23rd 1878 with Nojals-and-Clotte, close to Bergerac, his/her father was a modest landowner, his mother resulting from a family of notaries. She was the fifth child of the couple.

At the 4 years age, it was reached by the poliomiélite which left him the paralyzed left leg. The child however continued his education near his parents initially, then in the sisters of Joseph Saint where she already was very noticed by her piety and her devotion with the Eucharistie.

His/her father had tried to open a trade, but having made bad deals, it had to leave the house and to leave to seek work with Bordeaux as baker where all the family could join it. On the 11 children of the household, three had died in Nojals-and-Clotte, and two others will die in Bordeaux of tuberculosis and malnutrition. The family was plunged in misery.

Jeanne Germaine had been lodged by charity in a pension with Bordeaux where it prepared with the first communion and with the confirmation. But with died of her mother, it had to return to the house to deal with her older brother, reached tuberculosis, and which will die in 1893.

Since very small, Jeanne Germaine wanted to become nun, and to enter to the Clarisses. She on the occasion, in company of a friend, to go to visit a Clarisse of her knowledge in her monastery. The Mother Superior distinguished in this handicapped young girl a remarkable vocation, and it was allowed in the community of Talence, on June 12th 1896 where it pronounced her wishes, the November 21st 1896, under the name of sister Marie-Celine of the Presentation.

Reached tuberculosis, in addition to its handicap, it supported with patience and rigor the life of the moniales, accessible with humility and discretion the supernatural demonstrations of which it was the object.

She died in Talence (the Gironde) the May 30th 1897, 19 years old. As of its death, it appeared with others by suaves odors, which made it name by its entourage the Sainte with the perfumes .

She wrote right before her death with her sister: “ I die without regrets, I give you appointment to the sky… There high, I will not forget anybody… ”.

Beatification

She was declared Vénérable the 22 January 1957. In December 2006, the Pope Benoît XVI received the Prefect of the Congregation for the Cause of the Saints, the cardinal Jose Saraiva Martins, and promulgé the relative orders with eight attested miracles.

It was béatifiée the September 16th 2007 with the cathedral of Bordeaux, in the presence of the cardinal Jean-Pierre Ricard, special correspondent of the Pope, archbishop of Bordeaux and chair Conférence of the bishops of France.

Sources

Let us request in Church - Number 249 - September 2007 - Editions Bayard

External bond

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