Blessed Pauline-Marie Jaricot

The founder of the Society of the Propagation of the Faith

January 9th, we celebrate the feast of Blessed Pauline-Marie Jaricot (22 July 1799 – 9 January 1862), a prominent figure in 19th-century French Catholicism, the founder of the Society of the Propagation of the Faith and the Association of the Living Rosary and recently beatified on May 22, 2022 by Pope Francis.

Pauline is “the foundress of the largest aid agency for the missions in the entire history of the Catholic Church,” which later became the Society for the Propagation of the Faith and was conferred the title “Pontifical” by Pius XI in 1922.

Jaricot was born in Lyon on July 22, 1799, in the wake of the French Revolution and six months before Napoleon Bonaparte’s coup d’état. The Lyon region was an important center of resistance against the Revolution and Jaricot was baptized by a refractory priest.

She was the last of seven children. Her mother was a silk worker and her father was a factory owner, and the family lived in prosperity in the center of Lyon, next to Saint-Nizier Church. At fifteen years of age she was introduced into the social life of the city.

At the age of 15, Pauline suffered a bad fall. She had some injuries, but above all the consequences of that accident, led her to a long and painful depression. Not long after that, her beloved mother died. It took Pauline many months to recover, emotionally and physically. It was in the church that her life changed one day.

At the age of 17, she was listening to a homily that shook her to her core. Up to that point, she had lived a Christian life tinged with vanity. But on Christmas 1816, she took a vow of perpetual virginity in a small chapel dedicated to the Virgin Mary on the hill of Fourvière, a district of Lyon lying west of the old town.

In 1815, the family moved to another location in the city, near the neighborhood of La Croix-Rousse, where impoverished silk workers lived. After her conversion in 1816, Jaricot began to pray intensively and decided to dress like the silk workers, to be close to the poor and a sign of Christ’s presence among them.

As a member of an association founded by the Fathers of the Foreign Missions of Paris, Jaricot was a pioneer of organized missionary cooperation. With the women employees in the silk factory run by her sister and brother-in-law, she resolved to help the missions with prayers and a small weekly contribution of one penny a week from each person involved.

The seed grew and other groups joined to help all missions. This eventually led to the founding of the Society for the Propagation of the Faith in 1822, dedicated to helping missionary efforts worldwide. On May 3, 1922 Pope Pius XI declared the Society for the Propagation of the Faith “Pontifical”.

As the initiative spread, Jaricot’s spiritual father asked her to devote herself yet more intensely to prayer. It was a difficult time for her because she wanted to be active. But in this period, she wrote the book “Infinite Love in the Divine Eucharist,” a simple but profound meditation on the Eucharist read by generations of French Catholics.

In 1825, Pope Leo XII organized a great Jubilee, asking Catholics to pray the rosary for the protection of the Church and the world from dangers such as anti-clericalism and irreligion.In response, Jaricot founded the Association of the Living Rosary. The idea was simple: 15 members of a group would combine together to recite the full 15 decades of the rosary every day. The initiative was a great success in France and soon spread beyond it.

Together with other women, she formed a small lay community there called the Filles de Marie (“Daughters of Mary”). They followed a rigorous routine of prayer and activities such as promoting the Living Rosary and visiting the sick.Jaricot’s fame spread far and wide. She received letters from around the world from missionaries and Church figures. But her final years were marked by deep suffering and lived in the shadow of the Cross.

Jaricot became very ill and on 10 August 1835 she was healed by, she believed, Saint Philomena during a pilgrimage to Mungnano, Italy. Around 1845 Jaricot purchased a blast furnace plant to be run as a model of Christian social reform. A building adjacent to the plant accommodated the families, and close by was a school and a chapel.

She left the management to people who proved to be dishonest, and she was forced to declare bankruptcy in 1862. Having exhausted all her money, she spent the rest of her life destitute. Her reputation diminished greatly and, at the end of her life, she was included in the list of the city’s poor.

Pauline died on January 9, 1862; the prayer found after her death, written in her own hand, ended with these words: “Mary, O my Mother, I am Thine!” She was beatified on 22 May 2022 by Pope Francis.

Prayer:

Almighty and merciful God, who has chosen Blessed Marie Pauline, who through her commitment to the Gospel and passion for mission, began the works of the Propagation of the Faith and the Living Rosary, and who has wished in the midst of humiliations, trials and persecutions to purify her works, we pray that by her example of patience and love for the Cross, her life-time prayer, we may share our faith humbly and charitably and work together to make your love known to all of creation. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God, for ever and ever. Amen

Blessed Pauline-Marie Jaricot, pray for us