Mother Mechtilde A Biography of Mère M. Mechtilde Pouilh-Mauriès (1858-1940) by Marie Luce Baillet, FMI Translated by Joseph Stefanelli, SM North American Center for Marianist Studies Dayton, Ohio Monograph Series — Document No. 56 — 2013 The North American Center for Marianist Studies, located in Dayton, Ohio, provides programs, publications, and resources on Marianist history and charism to the comprehensive Marianist Family— religious men and women and lay people engaged in Marianist ministries or belonging to Marianist lay communities. We believe our service to the world today is informed by the richness of our heritage. So that we may better understand, appreciate, and share the Marianist spirit, NACMS strives to bring this heritage into dialogue with contemporary church and culture. For more about NACMS, visit www.nacms.org. Copyright © 2013 by NACMS, Dayton, Ohio. All rights reserved. Original French text issued by Litografia “Leberit Sri.” Rome, 2007. 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For scholars conducting original research, permission to use NACMS material in your research is not required, unless a large portion of a specific product is cited. If this occurs, please fill out a “Permission Request Form,” located at www.nacms.org/legal-and-privacy-policies. Contents Preface ................................................................................................................................................... iv Photographs.......................................................................................................................................... vii Introduction ............................................................................................................................................. x Chapter 1. Her Family Life ............................................................................................................................ 1 2. The Novitiate ................................................................................................................................ 9 3. Mistress of Novices .................................................................................................................... 17 4. Superior at Sucy en Brie ............................................................................................................. 26 5. Storm Clouds on the Horizon ..................................................................................................... 35 6. Turmoil and Diaspora ................................................................................................................. 43 7. Bond Between France and the General Administration ............................................................. 54 8. First Assistant ............................................................................................................................. 75 9. Spiritual Mistress ........................................................................................................................ 89 10. Church and France, 1914-39 ...................................................................................................... 99 11. Superior General ...................................................................................................................... 102 12. Selections from Her Teachings ................................................................................................ 115 Conclusion .......................................................................................................................................... 136 My gratitude goes to Mr. Saunier who, with much patience, proofread my text; and to Sister Marie Joëlle Bec who was gracious enough to offer some improvements. Preface When I was a novice I heard Mother Marie du Saint Sacrement Descaves (Superior General at that time) speaking to us with emotion about Mother Mechtilde, telling us that one might rightly consider her the second foundress of the Congregation of the Daughters of Mary Immaculate. From that time on, I have been burning with the desire to learn more about her, to really come to know her, as in families we wish to know the lives of grandparents whom we have not known personally but about whom we are happy to gather some remembrances. That is why I am pleased to present to you this work produced by Sister Marie Luce Baillet. I am most grateful to her for having agreed to search the archives to present to us the life of this Marianist religious thanks to whom, I believe, we today can carry on the mission that the Lord confided to our Founders. Who is this Mother Mechtilde? She was the seventh Superior General: Mother Marie Mechtilde Pouilh— a woman in whom was marvelously realized the word of Jesus: “Without me you can do nothing” (Jn 15:5); and this other, from Saint Paul: “Power is made perfect in weakness” (2 Cor 12:9). Mother Mechtilde lived through a particularly difficult time for the Church in France and, especially, for teaching Orders. She was superior of Petit-Val in Sucy en Brie at the time of the law of 1905, which imposed the separation of Church and State and resulted in the confiscation of the goods of religious institutes. She did whatever she could to maintain the establishment and to permit the religious to continue their mission in secrecy. She welcomed new works of the apostolate in Spain, in Denmark, and in Switzerland. While the General Administration was in exile in Spain she was the vital contact between it and France. She kept Mother Stanislas Pernier, the Superior General, abreast with all she was doing, sought her advice, and accepted all her responsibilities. After the death of Mother Stanislas in Spain, a new council was chosen. Mother Mechtilde was elected First Assistant. While she remained in Paris, the Superior General and the other Assistants found refuge in Belgium. She continued her role of communicator and consoler, giving attention to each one of her sisters. When the First World War broke out, the General Administration was across the closed frontier. It was Mother Mechtilde who made all the needed decisions. It became ever more difficult for the sisters to continue their teaching mission underground. So she opened family boardinghouses, notably at Antony. In the basement of those houses, when matters were calm enough, the religious life pursued its course even to the wearing of the habit and the profession of vows after she had obtained from the Holy See permission to open a clandestine novitiate. She used every means possible to help the sisters continue their consecrated life and to make known the One who is the intimate friend, the One from whom she unceasingly drew strength and courage to move ahead. She wrote very frequently to support the religious who, having had to abandon their convents, were scattered about in various locations. In 1918 the Superior General, Mother Thérèse de Saint Joseph Bouquerand, died at Nivelles, Belgium. It was Mother Mechtilde‟s responsibility, as First Assistant, to convoke a General Chapter. In the circular letter announcing this, she wrote: “Though our little Society has received many blows, it is still standing upright and, despite its sufferings and its deprivations, it is full of confidence in God and in its heavenly Mother; it will begin a new phase of its life.” The Chapter of 1919 chose her as Superior General, a responsibility she was to carry until the moment of her resignation for reasons of health, May 17, 1936. iv Year after year she would write to her daughters, seeking by her circular letters to strengthen their religious life. She thereby left a very rich teaching based on the essentials: faith, charity, prayer, the Marian spirit, the vows, apostolic dynamism, and peace. The purpose of her teaching was to maintain the unity of the congregation despite all its difficulties. That teaching was rooted in Scripture (which she often quoted) and in the writings of our Founders, Mother Adèle and Father Chaminade; those were her preferred references. She constantly referred to the spirit of the beginnings. I will not say more, but I urge you to read this biography. I am convinced you will read it with joy and with gratitude for all that the Lord and Mary Immaculate have been able to accomplish for our congregation through its humble availability and its openness to all possible mission fields. In the document of the 2002 Chapter, we read: “All the sisters (are called) to deepen an awareness of their belonging to this Family, to love it, to take greater interest in its history, in its life, in its mission, and in its