Once again, a Mystic from our Visitation Monastery of Nantes, France, is featured!
It was at the age of 20 that Sister Marie Claude was professed at the Visitation in 1749. Sister Marie-Claude said “it was to the Sacred Heart that I had a devotion so tender and so strong that nothing could please me if I could not see the image of this divine Heart. ”
In 1787, for the 3rd time, she was elected Superior of the Community. At that time she became an an apostle of the devotion to the Sacred Heart in the wake of new revelations to the Visitation from the Savior, to one of her daughters, Sister Marie-Anne Galipaud. On March 6, 1790, when the community was already suffering persecution, she devoted it to the Sacred Heart.
On December 18 Mother Marie-Claude wrote: “Having noticed how the adorable Heart of Jesus wished to be known and loved by his creatures to save them, we thought we should take advantage of the fear and dread that gives rise to these misfortunes, trying to revive the devotion and trust to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, by making small images. ” All Visitandines of Nantes rival each others’ zeal for making pictures of the Sacred Heart. Mother Marie-Claude will continue her mission to the end.
The Community refused to take the constitutional oath to the Revolutionary government and were expelled from the Monastery on October 1, 1792. That day the commissioners checked the seals, as well as objects that each Sister could carry and Mother Marie-Claude did serve a snack to these gentlemen which gave them the necessary time to sing one last time the Vespers Service. The Sisters found refuge with relatives, most in Nantes. Under the Terror, the community was largely reconstructed in the frightful prison of the Good Shepherd. They were released in early 1795
After the Concordat, in 1803, the Marquis de Bruc, having retired to his estates in Rezé, left his house to his sister. Mother Marie-Claude had transformed one of the rooms into a chapel and met several of her sisters who thus resumed their common and contemplative life. Via an external Sister, Sister Françoise-Julie Corneteau, nicknamed the “Mother of Priests”, she rescued many priests and seminarians reduced to poverty. All her efforts to recover the monastery which had been transformed into a military hospital were unsuccessful.
They acquired, in February 20, 1809 a parcel of the former Chartreuse.
On July 19, 1810, Bishop Duvoisin came to the new monastery to receive the renewal of vows of 14 Sisters which constituted the Visitation community (24 had died since the dispersion), and restored enclosure. The valiant Superior beamed.
Soon vocations flowed. Mother Marie-Claude felt her mission completed. On 18 March 1812, the Lord came into his garden to pick the this beautiful soul for His Heavenly garden.