Marie de Sales Chappuis

Venerable Marie de Sales Chappuis (Marie-Thérèse Chappuis) (born at Soyhières, a village of the Bernese Jura (then French territory), 16 June 1793; died at Troyes, 6 October 1875) was a French Catholic Salesian, a leader in the Order of the Visitation of Holy Mary.

Life

At the age of twelve years she entered as an intern pupil in the Visitation Convent at Fribourg, where she remained three years. In June, 1811, she returned to the convent as a postulant, but left it again in three months. Three years later she came back, took the religious habit on 3 June, 1815, and made her profession on 9 June, 1816. A year after taking her vows she was sent to Metz, but reasons of health compelled her to return to Fribourg.

In 1826 she became superior of the monastery at Troyes, and in 1833 spent six months in the second monastery in Paris, where she was afterwards to be superior (1838-44). The greater part of her life was spent at Troyes, where she was elected superior eleven times, and where she celebrated in 1866 the golden anniversary of her religious profession. Her last illness attacked her in September, 1875.

Teaching

Mother Mary de Sales is celebrated chiefly for her zeal in spreading a certain kind of spirituality which she called "The Way" (La Voie). Her principal biographer, Father Brisson, who had been for thirty years confessor to the Visitandines of Trayes, and was her director, writes that by this expression - La Voie - "she understood a state of soul which consisted in depending upon the actual will of God, relishing whatever was His good pleasure, and imitating the life of the Saviour externally" (Vie de la Vénérée Mère, Marie-de-Sales Chappuis, Paris, 1886, p. 591). The English edition of her life (London, 1900), in translating this sentence, overlooks the word actuelle (actual): "What did the good Mother mean by this Word, 'The Way'? She meant a state of soul which consists in an entire dependence on the Will of God, by an interior consent to all that is according to His good pleasure, and an exterior imitation of our Saviour" (p. 261). It adds: "Chosen by God to propagate and spread abroad this Way, the good Mother consecrated her whole life to it" (p. 262).

To spread this Way, she, with Father Brisson, founded the Oblates of St. Francis de Sales. - "It was in order to extend this Way that she made choice of others like herself, whom she might inspire with zeal, and point out the means, for attaining the desired end. She solemnly asserted that they would participate in the grace which she had herself received from God, by which they would understand how to deal with souls, and how to lead them to a love of this resemblance to their Saviour. This, she said, would be the characteristic work of their apostleship" (ibid.). She and her disciples proclaimed the marvellous efficacity of "The Way". "She added that this Divine action would not be confined merely to a certain number of privileged souls, but that it would be brought within the reach of the most abandoned. Nor would it be confined to souls who dwell under the light and influence of the Gospel, but would reach those who are the farthest from it, and penetrate even to the uttermost parts of the world" (p. 263). "'Wishing to save the world over again,' says one of the leading oblates, Father Rollin, in giving the ideas of the Good Mother, 'Our Lord had to use means until then unknown' ..." (Brisson, op. cit., p.661). The English "Life" (p. 275) attenuates this passage: "In His insatiable desire to save the world, He willed to employ a means hitherto unknown; a means by which all the glory would redound unto Himself alone, since, being merely His agents, man would claim no part therein ...".

References

• Abrégé de la vie et des vertus de notre très-honorée et vénérée Mère Marie de Sales Chappuis (Paris, S. d.);
• BRISSON, Vie de la vénérée mère Marie de Sales Chappuis (Paris, 1891);
• Life of the Venerable Mother Mary de Sales Chappuis (London, 1900);
• Annales salésiennes (Paris), passim;
• Positia super introductione causœ beatificationis servœ Dei Mariœ Franciscœ Salesiœ Chappuis (Rome, 1897);
• Positio super fama in genere (Rome, 1902).

Teaching

• Pensées de la ven. Mère Marie de Sales (Paris, 1897);
• FRAGNIÈRE, La Voie: sermon preached at Fribourg, 19 November, 1897 (Paris, 1898);
• WATRIGANT, Une nouvelle école de spiritualité in Etudes religieuses (Paris, June, 1899);
• FRAGNIÈRE, Réponse au Rd. Watrigant et justification de la voie de charité de la vénérée Mère Marie de Sales Chappuis (Fribourg, 1900);
• WATRIGANT, Les deux méthodes de spiritualité (Lille, 1900);
• HAGEN, Die ehw. Mutter Marie von Sales Chappuis in Sendbote des gottlichen Herzens Jesu (Cincinnati, 1900); Méthodes de spiritualité in Ami du clergé (6 February, 1902);
• GORTET, Lettre sur les vies de la V. Mère Chappuis (12 January, 1887), see Revue des sciences ecclésiastigues (Lille, September, 1900), 260;
• CHOLLET, La cause de béatification de la Mère Marie de Sales Chappuis (on the decision concerning the Writings of the venerable mother) in the same review (July, 1902);
• WATRIGANT, L'Ecole de la spiritualité simplifiée (Lille, 1903);
• Il modernismo ascetico in Civiltà Cattolica (8 May, 1908);
• CHOLLET, L'ascétique moderniste in Questions ecclesiastigues (Lille, June, July, August, 1909).

External links

• Catholic Encyclopedia article

 This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Herbermann, Charles, ed (1913). Catholic Encyclopedia. Robert Appleton Company. 

Persondata
Name	Chappuis, Marie de Sales
Alternative names
Short description
Date of birth	1793
Place of birth
Date of death	1875
Place of death