At Moulins in France, Blessed Louise-Thérèse de Montaignac de Chauvance, virgin, who founded the Pious Union of the Oblates of the Sacred Heart of Jesus.
Lifespan: 1820–1885
Beatified: 4 November 1990 by Pope John Paul II
Memoria liturgica: 27 June
“To serve the Lord, to serve the Church — these are one and the same.”
Louise-Thérèse de Montaignac de Chauvance was born on 14 May 1820 at Le Havre, France, to Raymond-Aimé and Anne de Raffin, the fifth of their six children. The family was of noble origins, related to the royal house of France, and counted among its ancestors numerous Crusaders and the holy abbot Amabilis.
She received her early education at home, and from the age of seven with the sisters of the Faithful Companions of Jesus. She continued her studies at the renowned Parisian boarding school known as “Les Oiseaux,” where she first developed that devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus to which she would consecrate her entire life. It was in that house that, in 1833, Archbishop de Quélen authorized the celebration of the first month dedicated to the Sacred Heart.
Having left the boarding school for reasons of health, she was entrusted by her ailing mother to her aunt, Madame de Raffin, who was also her godmother. From her Louise received a deeply spiritual and doctrinal formation, reading the Gospel and the writings of Saint Teresa of Ávila with great enthusiasm. At the age of thirteen she received her First Communion, which she considered the most beautiful experience of her life.
She navigated the social obligations of her family’s station with prudence; gifted and drawn to music and painting, she nonetheless cultivated a deep longing for greater intimacy with God.
In 1837, at the age of seventeen, she returned to “Les Oiseaux” in Paris, where she deepened her devotion to the Sacred Heart through contact with the Jesuit father Rousin, one of the foremost promoters of that devotion.
On 8 September 1843 she pronounced a vow of consecration to the Sacred Heart and joined her aunt in a project to found an Association for the spread of its veneration. On 4 December 1845, however, her aunt died suddenly, leaving Louise heir both to the project and to her estate.
She followed her family when it moved to Montluçon in 1848. There she was appointed director of the local Association of the Daughters of Mary, bearing the principal burden of caring for orphans, furnishing poor churches, and providing instruction for girls in need.
Moved above all by the destitution of the rural churches of the region, in 1848 she founded the Work of the Tabernacles to assist in their upkeep. In 1850 she also took in several orphaned girls in a room adjoining her family home, laying the foundations for an orphanage that she formally established at Moulins in 1852.
In 1854 she founded the Work of Reparatory Adoration. That same year, at the age of thirty-four, she was struck by a serious illness of the legs that confined her to bed more often than not for seven years — a trial that would accompany her for the rest of her life. Yet Louise de Montaignac never tired of continuing her devotion to the Sacred Heart.
After various attempts to affiliate her group as a Third Order to Congregations dedicated to the Sacred Heart, she finally followed the counsel of the Jesuit father Gautrelet (1807–1886), founder of the Apostleship of Prayer and her spiritual director. In March 1874 she brought into being the “Pious Union of the Oblates of the Sacred Heart,” approved by the Bishop of Moulins. The Institute was divided into two branches: the “Religious Oblates,” who could live in community, and the “Secular Oblates,” whose purpose was works of charity for those in need.
In December 1875 Louise-Thérèse was appointed secretary-general of the Apostleship of Prayer, then directed by the Jesuit father Henri Ramière. Although nearly immobilized by her illness, she was able to extend her network of contacts and accompany her Oblates, especially by correspondence.
In 1880 the Oblates decided to unite the two branches — the Religious and those known as the branch of the “Gatherings” — into a single Congregation, electing Louise-Thérèse as superior general. Despite a rupture with Father Ramière, the Congregation obtained the approval of the Holy See on 4 October 1881. A year later Louise founded the work of the “Little Samuels” to prepare young people to embrace the priestly or religious life.
When the Institute received approval from the Roman Congregation in 1888, only the Religious Oblates were recognized; the Secular Oblates, those of the “Gatherings,” and the affiliated Ladies were suppressed. The foundress Louise-Thérèse de Montaignac was spared this grief, however, for she had died on 27 June 1885 at Montluçon, aged sixty-five.
The cause for her beatification was introduced in Rome on 15 December 1914, and Pope John Paul II proclaimed her Blessed on 4 November 1990.