At Marseille in France, Saint Émilie de Vialar, virgin, who, laboring to spread the Gospel to far-off regions, founded the Congregation of the Sisters of Saint Joseph of the Apparition and spread it widely.
Lifespan: 1797–1856
Beatified: 18 June 1939 by Pope Pius XII
Canonized: 24 June 1951 by Pope Pius XII
Memoria liturgica: 24 August
“Our Order must prosper in poverty.”
Anne-Marguerite-Adélaïde-Émilie de Vialar was born in Gaillac on 12 September 1797.
Émilie de Vialar consecrated her life to the poor, receiving them in her home and drawing several companions into a genuine organized work of charity. Together with them, in 1832, she established in Gaillac a new form of religious life dedicated to the service of every kind of human misery and to the education of girls. The support of the Archbishop of Albi, François-Marie de Gauly, gave the Institute of Saint Joseph of the Apparition such impetus that within a few years it spread to every continent.
In 1951, the Church proclaimed her a saint, and her body, transferred to Gaillac in 1972, was offered for the veneration of the Christians of the land that had seen her birth.
Émilie de Vialar died on 24 August 1856, the day on which she is commemorated in Marseilles, where she had long labored. She founded her congregation at Christmas of 1832. With the intention of spreading the Gospel to the most distant lands, she founded the Congregation of the Sisters of Saint Joseph of the Apparition, and despite difficulties, persecutions, and poverty succeeded in establishing forty-two houses from North Africa to Burma, bringing remarkable growth to her Institute.
She was canonized on 17 June 1951 by Pope Pius XII. Today her sisters are present on all five continents. The canonical feast day is 24 August, though in her communities she is celebrated on 17 June.