Saint Marie of Incarnation was an Ursuline nun born in France as Marie Guyart. From an early age she was drawn to religious liturgy and the sacraments. When Marie was seven years old, she recounted her first mystical encounter with Jesus Christ.
Intent on belonging to Christ, Marie, aged fourteen, proposed to her parents that she enter religious life with the Benedictines of Beaumont Abbey but her parents disregarded her desire. Instead, she was married to Claude Martin, a master silk worker in 1617. Her husband died only months after the birth of their son, leaving Marie a widow at the age of nineteen.
With her husband’s death, Saint Marie inherited his failing business which she then lost. Forced to move into her parents’ home, Saint Marie secluded herself to pursue a deepening of her commitment to spiritual growth. Free to pursue her religious inclinations after her husband’s death, Saint Marie took a vow of chastity, obedience, and poverty. On 24 March 1620, she reported a religious vision that set her on a new path of devotional intensity.
In 1631, after working with a spiritual director for many years, Saint Marie decided to enter the Ursuline monastery in Tours to answer her religious vocation. As part of a group of nuns sent to New France to establish the Ursuline Order, Saint Marie was crucial in the spread of Catholicism in New France. She was a religious author and has been credited with founding the first girls’ school in the New World.
