“Do not be upset if things are not as you would want them to be for a long time to come. Do the little you can very peacefully and calmly so as to allow room for the guidance of God in your lives. Do not worry about the rest”.

Praying with Louise de Marillac
Gibson & Kneaves, St. Mary’s Press, 1995, Page 40

Every year on March 15, the Roman Catholic Church honors Saint Louise de Marillac, the Patroness of Social Workers, and the Patroness of our Marillac Clinic.

Louise was born on August 12, 1591, in France. Nothing is known about her mother. Her father, Louis de Marillac, a widower, placed Louise in a Dominican convent just outside of Paris when she was an infant. At the age of 12, Louise’s father passed way and Louise was taken from the convent and placed in a boarding school near Paris. At the age of 20, she asked permission to enter the community of the Daughters of the Passion, but due to health concerns, the request was denied. She married on February 5, 1613, to Antoine Le Gras. To this union, a son was born. Antoine passed away from tuberculosis on December 21, 1625. After her husband passed way, Louise followed her “intense love of God”. This “intense love” placed Louise under the spiritual direction of Saint Vincent de Paul. Saint Vincent de Paul by this time had established a religious community of men, the Congregation of the Mission, which evangelized the poor. Their friendship grew. “Vincent required that the personal service given was compassionate, gentle, respectful, devoted, and from the heart”. Pg. 18 Saint Louise learned much under the gentle guidance of Saint Vincent de Paul. “From 1629 on, Vincent guided Louise, and poor people taught her about a God who is more accepting, forgiving, and loving then the one she had known in her formative years. As God led Louise to the poor, charity burned in her heart so that she found and treasured Christ in the broken hearts, spirits, and bodies of the destitute people she served”. Pg 19 On November 29, 1633, Saint Louise established her order the Daughters of Charity. She had 5 or 6 laywomen who committed themselves to the care of the poor in those early years. In the beginning of the order, the women did not take vows. Since all religious communities of women were cloistered at this time, (never leaving their convents) by not taking vows, the Daughters of Charity had the ability to minister the poor by building and working in hospitals, schools, orphanages, and nursing homes for the elderly. The work of the order also included feeding and administering to galley slaves.

Saint Louise…“welcomed the grace of God, which transformed her fretful heart into a courageous, generous, and compassionate heart that loved intensely; a heart that welcomed poor, hopeless, alienated, and abandoned people. She took a small group of young women and molded them into a community of total dedication, given to God in the service of the poor…” Pg 30

Saint Louise wrote…[My God] may the desire for holy poverty always live in my heart in such a manner that, freed from all bonds, I may follow Jesus Christ and serve my neighbor with great humility and gentleness…honoring the poverty that Jesus Christ practiced so perfectly”. Pg 69

Saint Louise de Marillac left this world and entered into the next world in the year 1660.

All information was taken from the book: Praying with Louise de Marillac Gibson & Kneaves, St. Mary’s Press 1995