SAINT OF THE WEEK

St Jeanne Delanoue (August 17)
Jeanne Delanoue (16661736) was not much more than a conventional Catholic as a girl. The older she became, however, the more inexhaustibly her charity flowed.
The youngest of 12 children, she was born in Saumur, where her parents ran a shop specialising in drapery and religious trinkets. When her mother died in 1691, Jeanne, tiny, sharptempered and coquettish, took over the business, which flourished under her command.
Her life began to change in 1693, when, aged 27, she encountered a woman who persuaded her that her destiny was to work for the poor. This intuition was confirmed shortly afterwards when Jeanne experienced three days of ecstatic union with the Virgin Mary.
She now closed her shop to live entirely for the destitute, giving over her house beside the Loire to this purpose. Soon her charges were overflowing into caves hollowed out of the rock. Charity, however, was not rewarded: in 1703 her house crumbled after an earth tremor.
It was a severe test of faith; nevertheless her benevolent impulses were redoubled. Her work inspired generous benefactors, who found new and more spacious lodgings; and in 1704 two women joined her to form the Soeurs de Ste Anne, servantes des pauvres de la Providence de Saumur. In 1709, during a severe food shortage, a common occurrence in the latter years of Louis XIV, the order was able to care for 100 people. That year the congregation's Rule was approved by the Bishop of Angers.
Jeanne was as industrious and efficient as she was compassionate, rising daily in the small hours to pursue her mission. She showed particular solicitude for single mothers and prostitutes. For herself she cared not a straw. sleeping in an old shroud which became so filthy that she was designated the pig of Christ".
Yet she showed great sensitivity in her charity. To understand the plight of her charges more intimately she herself begged on the road to Tours, concluding that it was a great deal easier to give alms than to ask for them.
Jeanne's moral rigour owed something to the Jansenists, well represented . among the clergy of Saumur. She differed from them, however, in her insistence on taking daily Communion. Indeed, she showed scant respect to priests of every hue.
Of course the more worldly Saumurois poured scorn on her work. By the time of her death, though, she had established 11 communities, including one as far afield as the Morbihan, Brittany. She also founded schools and homes for the poor.
Two hundred and seventyone years after her death the Sisters of Providence number some 400 religious. In 1956 a house was inaugurated in Madagascar; in 1979 another in Sumatra, and in 1988 a third in Mali.
Jeanne Delanoue was canonised in 1982.