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Catholic Saints
Bl. Marie-Anne Blondin
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Dive into the lives of Holy Women You’ve Never Heard Of with Dr. Elizabeth Klein and Dr. Jessica Murdoch. Bl. Marie Anne grew up in poverty and was illiterate until age 20. She became a foundress of a successful religious order in the countryside of Quebec, Canada, and endured false accusations for forty years by her order's chaplain.
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Podcast Host
You're listening to a podcast on Catholic saints. This podcast is produced by the Augustine Institute, an apostolate helping Catholics understand, live and share their faith.
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Dr. Elizabeth Klein
Welcome to form. Now you're joining us for our series on holy women you've never heard of. So we've drawn together some more obscure saints from throughout the tradition that we have been attracted to and want to share with you. I'm Dr. Elizabeth Klein. I'm here today with Dr. Jess Murdoch. We're both professors who teach here at the Augustine Institute. And this final episode, we're jumping way ahead in time. We just did a medieval Saint from the 14th century. Now we're jumping to the 19th century with a blessed, so not fully canonized, but blessed Mary Anne Blondin. So she lived basically throughout the entire 19th century. So she lived from 1809 to 1890. So she lived 81 years, which is, you know, a lot longer than some of the medieval and early saints who didn't have as much medical care as we do now. So she lived a long life. And I'm the one who picked this one. Blessed Mary Ann Blondin is from Quebec. She's a Canadian saint. And I'm Canadian. And when I'm on maternity leave, I try to like read the saint of the day. You know, you're like stuck nursing, whatever. And this is a particular saint that her story just really stuck with me. So when we were thinking about this list of women, she just came to mind. I thought she'd be someone really beautiful to talk about. So as I mentioned, Blessed Mary in Blondin is from Quebec. So this is the French speaking province of Canada. So that was the part settled by the French. So it was strange. Strongly Catholic, maybe not so much today, but in those times, definitely. So she was the third child of a family of 12 and she was this, the daughter of a farmer. So not a very wealthy family, had no education. And so she was illiterate, could not read or write until she was 20 years old. And at that time she received education from religious sisters to read and write. And this was just very powerful and transformative for her. So she intended to join that order but was prevented from doing so due to health problems. But after she recovered from her health problems, she sought permission to found a new order. And her goal was to give to all of the other sort of rural poor of Quebec what she herself had been given and be able to teach sort of children of all ages from. From all around the countryside. So that's kind of the beginning of her story. And at this Time, many parishes were too poor to start a school. So the idea.
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Dr. Jess Murdoch
Why is that? What was the situation in Canada at the time?
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Dr. Elizabeth Klein
Yeah, so there's a novel too, Marie Chapdelaine, which is about sort of the rural poor of Quebec. I haven't read it myself, but Dr. Bloom of the Gaston Institute has recommended it to me, so I should turn to it. So in the history of Canada, you had the French that settled parts of Canada and you had the British who settled other parts of Canada. Canada, eventually they come to blows over who gets control over the territory. And you know, on the Plains of Abraham, the French lose. And so they lose sort of territorial control over Canada and the English take over. And then after that time, after the fall of the French regime, you do have this very kind of impoverished, depressed situation in the French speaking parts of Canada. And so that's where you kind of have this situation of all of these children who can't read or write all over the place. And lots of these big Catholic families having a difficult time supporting their families and teaching. So this was really needed. And it was something that she saw. She just saw the plight of all of these children. And part of it, the difficulty was at that time there was a church rule that there was not supposed to be mixed classrooms of boys and girls. And so most parishes couldn't afford two different schools, so they just didn't have any. And so she kind of managed to like relax that rule and teach mixed classes and sort of have her sisters have her sisters teach. And when she said she wanted to start this order, at the time her spiritual director told her, oh, you want to start an order, then you've chosen the cross. And he couldn't have known how prophetic it was because her story, well, it's quite frankly a little bit depressing, but it's inspiring nonetheless. So about four years after she. So she was the mother superior of the order, the order really flourished. Her talents for teaching were well known. I think they had like something like 30 sisters after only three or four years after the foundation of the order. But during this time they had no chaplain. You know, they're this burgeoning order. The bishop didn't have anyone to spare. And finally he does. He sends them a new chaplain, a young man. And, you know, the details of why exactly he didn't like Blessed Mary Ann is not totally clear. But it seemed like he was very zealous and had a lot of energy, which meant he was very controlling over the community. And he came to sort of have a lot of tension with her. And he just. He just seemed to really have it out for her. So he, you know, these tensions became known to the bishop. And although the bishop had exchanged many letters with Mary Ann and was very favorable and fatherly towards her, he asked her to resign as head of the order to resolve these conflicts and not to take that post, which she did. And, you know, it was obviously difficult for her. It wasn't, like, super easy. But at the same time, I think she felt a bit of a relief of the burden of sort of shepherding all these. All these souls. And so then she was kind of the director of a school instead. But this. This chaplain just didn't think she should have any posting of any authority. So he really pushed to have her not also the director of a school. So she describes her experience, especially in one particular year, as her being, like, reduced to zero. So she was taken no active duties at all, I think. Yeah. She didn't really do anything for a time. And it was not even on the list of the registers of nuns, Just kind of completely forgotten. And then, you know, then she does get some duties, but they're mostly like domestic duties like the laundry. And there was, you know, after they started collecting witnesses of her life, some of the sisters witnessed her saying things like, well, if Jesus wants me to do laundry, then so what.
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Dr. Jess Murdoch
What profound humility.
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Dr. Elizabeth Klein
Just very. Yeah. And you can tell from some of her letters. I didn't get a chance to read her whole life because it was long and in French, but I did read parts of it. And you can tell that this wasn't, like, easy for her instantly, but that she really did develop this kind of total surrender to the providence of God.
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Dr. Jess Murdoch
I can't imagine starting an order, having the order be successful, and then being reduced to the laundress.
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Dr. Elizabeth Klein
And people not even like later sisters, not even knowing that you were the
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Dr. Jess Murdoch
foundress, that you even had a role,
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Dr. Elizabeth Klein
that you knew who you even were. Because she lives till she's 81, and she suffers this humiliation, like, when she's in her 40s.
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Dr. Jess Murdoch
And she could so easily have lashed out at the chaplain. It's interesting.
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Dr. Elizabeth Klein
Yeah. And she.
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Dr. Jess Murdoch
One might even think she would be warranted to do so, or to at
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Dr. Elizabeth Klein
least defend her name absolutely. And not only does she not do that, but she eventually, when she gets the job as sacristan, she writes to the bishop to tell him how grateful she is for having this role as sacristan. But she gets to spend so much time with the Lord, and because she gets a daily Chance to see the chaplain and so that she can sort of ask for forgiveness or be reconciled to him.
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Dr. Jess Murdoch
Wow.
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Dr. Elizabeth Klein
And so it is. It's a very. It's a very beautiful witness. And it just. It just stuck with me, her story, because it's so heroic and so silent, you know?
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Dr. Jess Murdoch
Yes.
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Dr. Elizabeth Klein
Yeah.
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Dr. Jess Murdoch
I was gonna ask you, why were you attracted to her in particular?
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Dr. Elizabeth Klein
I think maybe, like, in the middle of breastfeeding, you're attracted to being reduced to zero. I don't know. I don't know.
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Dr. Jess Murdoch
I understand that myself, but just.
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Dr. Elizabeth Klein
Yeah, just this idea of the Lord's providential arrangement of your life that's very difficult to accept. I mean, there are times when you have to do things that you don't want to do, and there are times which this may even be harder, when you're asked to sacrifice even what you think your talents are. You know, when you're asked to sacrifice what you think you could give, and be told, like, we don't need. We don't need that right now. You know, that. That can be even more difficult than giving is being told that that's not for now, or that you're not needed or wanted. And for her to reach a place where she feels totally loved by God and where God means for her to be, even when clearly she was a talented teacher, clearly a talented, you know, organizer, because she founded this successful order that she was able to accept that that's not what God was calling her to do for the last 40 years of her life, which is, I think, would be a very. Like. That would be a very bitter pill for me. And especially, like, I really hate being, like, stuck under an infant all day and just being, you know, just feeling like I can't even stand up. I can't even shower. I can't even. I just find that part of having a young child very difficult. And so I think I was just attracted to her complete surrender to that situation.
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Dr. Jess Murdoch
It's like, surrender and also just attachment. I mean, she shows tremendous detachment from basically everything. I mean, you keep underscoring the 40 years. 40 years is a long time to endure an injustice, just to enjoy. Just to endure it. Just to endure an injustice for 40 years and to be detached from it all.
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Dr. Elizabeth Klein
And, I mean, it's so Christlike, I mean, to say, forgive them if they don't know what they're doing. To forgive somebody while they're still wrong. While they're still wronging you and still in your presence. In the case of the chaplain, I mean, and who knows, like, what his particular sins were. But he was the cause of her sort of downfall. But to be daily in his presence and being. Wanting to be reconciled to him despite him being sort of the cause of this.
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Dr. Jess Murdoch
It's very painful.
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Dr. Elizabeth Klein
It's very painful. And I think. I mean, whether we like it or not, there's a lot of people who have been hurt by the church. There's a lot of people who've been hurt by priests who made bad decisions or apostolates who had unfair policies or parishioners with no sympathy for those who are working in the church. Working for the church is really hard and is often very thankless. And I think she's just a beautiful example of saying, like, Christ suffered for his church and I can too. And Christ was treated badly by his own people. And when I experience that I'm in solidarity with Christ, I think that's very difficult. It's especially difficult when it happens in the context of the church to be wronged in that way. You can feel, yeah, this more indignation or like this heightened sense of the injustice. But instead she sort of found unity with Christ in that because that's also what he sort of suffered and experienced.
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Dr. Jess Murdoch
And on the more mundane level, she could almost be a patron of mothers.
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Dr. Elizabeth Klein
Yeah, I call her my patron. She's like my patron saint of laundry. She's like the patron of laundry. God wants me to do laundry. So what? Then that's what I'll do.
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Dr. Jess Murdoch
We all have to do laundry.
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Dr. Elizabeth Klein
Yeah, we all have to do laundry. And even that can be offered up to God. Even the foundress of religious orders. Well, she was reduced to doing laundry all the time, which thankfully, most of us don't have to do. But, yeah, totally. I totally see her as a kind of, like, patron of mundane life and of hidden life. And that's. I mean, that's the life of so many people, so many mothers, but also people in religious orders too, who a lot of it's just the daily. That's the self and doing what you're asked. And her example of obedience is just so extreme. Hopefully most of us don't have to go through an extreme being reduced to zero. But I think her heroic response to that is very instructive, but also kind of the hopeful side of it, other than like, her, you know, dying in the laundry room or whatever. Not literally. Is that we don't. We just don't. We don't know the consequences of all of our holy actions. We can't see them. You know, we don't know when we made a good choice, what difference it makes. And she could not have known, right, that 20, 30 years after her death, the new chaplain discovers her writings, discovers her life, interviews the sisters about her, and she ends up being canonized. I mean, you just wouldn't know that. And so it's just a kind of strong exhortation to do what is right and do what is good and to pursue personal holiness and to let God decide how to use that. And we don't always get to see, even in our own life, we may do some good deed that affects somebody down the line and we never know about it. Hopefully we'll know about it on the other side, but we don't know about it. And so just to have that confidence in Providence and God's ability to use even our laundry work, that seems like nobody will ever know about this. Now everybody who's watching this program will know about her heroic doing of laundry that she could not have foreseen so well. Thank you for letting me choose a favorite Canadian saint. Had to fit one in there. I hope you found the story of Blessed Mary Ann Blondin inspiring and and by praying for her intercession. Blessed Mary Ann London pray for us.
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Podcast Host
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