Fr. Felix de Jesús Rougier
Fr. Félix de Jesús Rougier.
French priest, Fr. Felix de Jesús Rougier (1859-1938), outstanding 20th century apostle of Mexico and founder of the Congregation of the Holy Ghost Missionaries, the Daughters of the Holy Ghost, the Guadalupe Missionaries of the Holy Ghost, and the Oblates of Jesus the Priest. Fr. Rougier arrived in Mexico in response to an official request made to Pius X, by a group of Mexican bishops led by Archbishop Ramon Ibarra y Gonzalez of Puebla, who wanted the Holy Spirit Missionaries to begin a foundation.. This was a Providential response to the scarcity of priests in the country, and the need for their formation.
Fr. Rougier, who was born in France in 1859, is remembered as one of the priests who gave his life for the Church in Mexico during the difficult times of revolution and religious persecution. Among his many accomplishments, Fr. Rougier founded three women's congregations, with the help of several Mexican women: the Daughters of the Holy Spirit (1924), who supported the fostering of priestly vocations; the Guadalupe Missionaries of the Holy Spirit (1930), who collaborated with bishops and priests in the work of evangelization and catechesis of the poor, especially Mexican Indians; and the Oblates of Jesus the Priest, who expressed the presence of the consecrated woman in the lives of seminarians and priests.
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| Saint Colette of Jesus
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| Saint Colette of Jesus
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| Information
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| Born
| January 13, 1381
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| Died
| March 6, 1447
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| Feast Day
| March 6
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| Patronage
| Patron saint of Corbie, France; loss of parents
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| Sainthood
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| Beatification
| 1604 by Pope Clement VIII
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| Canonization
| May 24, 1807
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(Diminutive of NICOLETTA, COLETTA).
Founder of Colettine Poor Clares (Clarisses), born 13 January 1381, at Corbie in Picardy, France; died at Ghent, 6 March, 1447. Her father, Robert Boellet, was the carpenter of the famous Benedictine Abbey of Corbie; her mother's name was Marguerite Moyon. Colette joined successively the Bequines, the Benedictines, and the Urbanist Poor Clares. Later she lived for a while as a recluse. Having resolved to reform the Poor Clares, she turned to the antipope, Benedict XIII (Pedro de Luna), then recognized by France as the rightful pope. Benedict allowed her to enter to the order of Poor Clares and empowered her by several Bulls, dated 1406, 1407, 1408, and 1412 to found new convents and complete the reform of the order. With the approval of the Countess of Geneva and the Franciscan Henri de la Beaume, her confessor and spiritual guide, Colette began her work at Beaume, in the Diocese of Geneva. She remained there but a short time and soon opened at Besancon her first convent in an almost abandoned house of Urbanist Poor Clares. Thence her reform spread to Auxonne (1410), to Poligny, to Ghent (1412), to Heidelberg (1444), to Amiens, etc. To the seventeen convents founded during her lifetime must be added another begun by her at Pont-à-Mousson in Lorraine. She also inaugurated a reform among the Franciscan friars (the Coletani), not to be confounded with the Observants. These Coletani remained obedient to the authority of the provincial of the Franciscan convents, and never attained much importance even in France. In 1448 they had only thirteen convents, and together with other small branches of the Franciscan Order were suppressed in 1417 by Leo X. In addition to the strict rules of the Poor Clares, the Colettines follow their special constitutions sanctioned in 1434 by the General of the Franciscans, William of Casale, approved in 1448 by Nicholas V, in 1458 by Pius II, and in 1482 by Sixtus IV.
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