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Alix Le Clerc
Alix Le Clerc (2 February 1576 – 9 January 1622), known as Mother Alix, was a French religious leader and founder of the Canonesses of Saint-Augustin of the Notre-Dame Congregation (French: Notre-Dame), a religious order created to provide education to girls, especially those living in poverty. They opened Schools of Our Lady throughout Europe. Offshoots of this order brought its mission and spirit around the globe. Le Clerc was beatified by the Catholic Church in 1947.
Alix (the local form of Alice) Le Clerc was born on 2 February 1576 into a wealthy family in Remiremont in the independent Duchy of Lorraine, part of the Holy Roman Empire. She was a vivacious girl who loved music and dancing. She would spend her evenings partying with her young friends. When she was about 18, her family moved to Mattaincourt, a manufacturing center.
Three years later, a sudden illness confined her to her bed. While there, her only reading material was a devotional book. From the reading and reflection she was able to do while recuperating from her illness, Le Clerc began to feel the need for a change in her life. She approached the pastor of the town, Dom Peter Fourier, with whom she shared this growing conviction about the need for a new direction in her life, but that none of the religious orders appealed to her.
A purported vision of Our Lady answered her questioning and gave her the direction she sought, as she felt called to care for the daughters of the poor of the region, who had little or no access to education. Supported in this by Fourier, who himself had seen the desperate need for this among the rural populace of his parish, Le Clerc resolved to commit her life to this goal. She was joined in this enterprise by four of her friends, with whom she established a community where they could follow lives of simplicity, prayer, and respecting the presence of God in each girl whom they would receive for instruction.
On Christmas Day 1597, Le Clerc and her companions made private vows in the parish church to Fourier. The small community opened their first school the following July in Poussay, where they offered free education to the girls of the duchy. Expansion of their work developed quickly, with communities being opened in Mattaincourt (1599), Saint-Mihiel (1602), Nancy (1603), Pont-à-Mousson (1604), Verdun, and Saint-Nicolas-de-Port (1605). All the schools took the name of Notre-Dame.
Le Clerc established herself in Nancy, capital of the duchy, and devoted herself to the care of the girls who came to the schools of the new congregation. At the same time, working through major obstacles, she and Fourier developed constitutions for the new congregation through which the communities could be legally recognized by the Church and the State.
The vision Le Clerc and Fourier had was one in which schools would give a free education to all, poor and rich, and all girls would be welcome, regardless of whether they were Catholic or Protestant. Additionally, the other needs of their locales would be answered, with visits to the sick and poor. They encountered resistance to this open form of life from the hierarchy, who did not look favorably on their teaching outside a cloister.[citation needed] In consultation with the first Sisters, especially Le Clerc, the final form of the constitutions which Fourier wrote took an innovative answer to this by allowing two ways of life to those women who wished to follow the goals of the congregation. In keeping with ancient practice, each community would be autonomous, subject to the local bishop, and would each have to seek this formal recognition on its own from the local religious authorities.[citation needed] The houses were to be of two forms, all following the Rule of St. Augustine, as well as the constitutions:[citation needed]
The first approval for the Constitutions came on 6 March 1617 from the Bishop of Toul, in whose territory Nancy then lay, as a result of which that became the first monastery of the congregation. Le Clerc and the members of that community professed public vows on 2 December 1618, at which time she took the religious name of Teresa of Jesus, after the great Carmelite foundress. Immediately following the ceremony, Fourier met with the assembled Superiors of the various houses and distributed copies of the approved constitutions for their study and observance. Shortly after that, the canonesses of Nancy held their first formal elections and Le Clerc was elected the prioress of the community.
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Alix Le Clerc
Alix Le Clerc (2 February 1576 – 9 January 1622), known as Mother Alix, was a French religious leader and founder of the Canonesses of Saint-Augustin of the Notre-Dame Congregation (French: Notre-Dame), a religious order created to provide education to girls, especially those living in poverty. They opened Schools of Our Lady throughout Europe. Offshoots of this order brought its mission and spirit around the globe. Le Clerc was beatified by the Catholic Church in 1947.
Alix (the local form of Alice) Le Clerc was born on 2 February 1576 into a wealthy family in Remiremont in the independent Duchy of Lorraine, part of the Holy Roman Empire. She was a vivacious girl who loved music and dancing. She would spend her evenings partying with her young friends. When she was about 18, her family moved to Mattaincourt, a manufacturing center.
Three years later, a sudden illness confined her to her bed. While there, her only reading material was a devotional book. From the reading and reflection she was able to do while recuperating from her illness, Le Clerc began to feel the need for a change in her life. She approached the pastor of the town, Dom Peter Fourier, with whom she shared this growing conviction about the need for a new direction in her life, but that none of the religious orders appealed to her.
A purported vision of Our Lady answered her questioning and gave her the direction she sought, as she felt called to care for the daughters of the poor of the region, who had little or no access to education. Supported in this by Fourier, who himself had seen the desperate need for this among the rural populace of his parish, Le Clerc resolved to commit her life to this goal. She was joined in this enterprise by four of her friends, with whom she established a community where they could follow lives of simplicity, prayer, and respecting the presence of God in each girl whom they would receive for instruction.
On Christmas Day 1597, Le Clerc and her companions made private vows in the parish church to Fourier. The small community opened their first school the following July in Poussay, where they offered free education to the girls of the duchy. Expansion of their work developed quickly, with communities being opened in Mattaincourt (1599), Saint-Mihiel (1602), Nancy (1603), Pont-à-Mousson (1604), Verdun, and Saint-Nicolas-de-Port (1605). All the schools took the name of Notre-Dame.
Le Clerc established herself in Nancy, capital of the duchy, and devoted herself to the care of the girls who came to the schools of the new congregation. At the same time, working through major obstacles, she and Fourier developed constitutions for the new congregation through which the communities could be legally recognized by the Church and the State.
The vision Le Clerc and Fourier had was one in which schools would give a free education to all, poor and rich, and all girls would be welcome, regardless of whether they were Catholic or Protestant. Additionally, the other needs of their locales would be answered, with visits to the sick and poor. They encountered resistance to this open form of life from the hierarchy, who did not look favorably on their teaching outside a cloister.[citation needed] In consultation with the first Sisters, especially Le Clerc, the final form of the constitutions which Fourier wrote took an innovative answer to this by allowing two ways of life to those women who wished to follow the goals of the congregation. In keeping with ancient practice, each community would be autonomous, subject to the local bishop, and would each have to seek this formal recognition on its own from the local religious authorities.[citation needed] The houses were to be of two forms, all following the Rule of St. Augustine, as well as the constitutions:[citation needed]
The first approval for the Constitutions came on 6 March 1617 from the Bishop of Toul, in whose territory Nancy then lay, as a result of which that became the first monastery of the congregation. Le Clerc and the members of that community professed public vows on 2 December 1618, at which time she took the religious name of Teresa of Jesus, after the great Carmelite foundress. Immediately following the ceremony, Fourier met with the assembled Superiors of the various houses and distributed copies of the approved constitutions for their study and observance. Shortly after that, the canonesses of Nancy held their first formal elections and Le Clerc was elected the prioress of the community.