At Quebec in the province of Canada, Blessed Marie of the Incarnation Guyart Martin, who, a mother of a family, after the death of her husband entrusted her little son to the care of her sister and, having professed the Ursuline religious life, established their house in Canada, accomplishing many remarkable works.
Lifespan: 1599–1672
Beatified: 22 June 1980 by Pope John Paul II
Canonized: 3 April 2014 by Pope Francis (equivalent canonization)
Memoria liturgica: 30 April
“Mother of the Catholic Church in Canada”; “Teresa of the New World”
Marie Guyart was born in Tours, France, on 28 October 1599. At the age of seven she said “yes” to the Lord, who, in a dream, asked her to belong to him.
At seventeen, though she felt drawn to the cloister, she married Claude Martin, a master silk worker, out of respect for her parents’ wishes. Widowed at nineteen, with a six-month-old son, she wound up her husband’s business, which was heading toward bankruptcy. Stripped of resources, she returned to her father’s house and devoted herself to the upbringing of her son Claude. From this point on, she became the recipient of mystical graces that deepened her union with God, to whom she spoke “with great familiarity.”
She led a deeply contemplative life while at the same time exercising her gifts for administration. In 1621 her brother-in-law entrusted her with the management of his transport business. She spent her days at the riverside stables, loading and unloading merchandise. Feeling an urgent call to the religious life, she entrusted her twelve-year-old son to her sister’s care and education, and entered the Ursuline monastery of Tours in 1631, where she took the name Marie of the Incarnation.
In 1639 she answered God’s call to go to Canada, “to build a house there for Jesus and Mary,” and set sail from Dieppe on 4 May, together with two other Ursulines and three Hospitallers. They were accompanied by Madeleine Chauvigny de la Peltrie, who had chosen to put her own means at the service of a foundation in New France.
On arriving in Québec, Marie of the Incarnation wrote: “The first thing we did was to kiss this land to which we had come to spend our lives in the service of God and of our poor savages.”
She never returned to France. She built and rebuilt a small monastery to house the community, as well as the indigenous and French girls whom the Ursulines received and educated together. She welcomed and nourished the Hurons and Algonquins who came to her door, instructed them, and encouraged them to share the Good News with their tribes. Her door was open to governors, dignitaries, and settlers, as well as to woodsmen, to French and indigenous people alike. All found there counsel, support, and — in time of need — food and shelter.
She drafted the Constitutions and Regulations of the Ursulines of Québec (1647), then set about composing dictionaries and grammars, catechisms and prayers in the principal indigenous languages. At her son’s request, and dedicating the work to him, she wrote an autobiographical account of “her states of prayer and grace” that places her among the great masters of the spiritual life. A collection of her teachings to the novices of Tours has also been preserved.
The mystical quality of her writings led Bossuet to call her “the Teresa of New France.” In the midst of all this activity, she maintained a correspondence with family, friends, and benefactors in France that is of considerable historical and spiritual interest; some three hundred of her letters have been found and preserved.
Marie of the Incarnation died in Québec on 30 April 1672. She was declared Blessed by Pope John Paul II on 22 June 1980, and a saint by Pope Francis on 3 April 2014.