Background
Catherine was born on October 4, 1754 into a poor family of peasants in Doumis, Cantal.
Catherine was born on October 4, 1754 into a poor family of peasants in Doumis, Cantal.
Still quite young, like all of the youth of her age and background, she worked in the fields with her family and at the age of 9 she was sent to work as a servant of a neighbor. There it was said that she lived a happy and even mischievous life. lieutenant was also at this age, as was the norm, that she made her first Holy Communion, a cherished memory for the rest of her life.
In the imitation of her patron, Saint Catherine of Siena, she became a third-order Dominican.
She greatly enjoyed to dance Bourrée, but she renounced it and would say while she was going around everywhere to help the poor:
"I would like that people confess as many times as I danced the Bourrée"
She spent all her life providing for the spiritual and material needs of the needy, requisitioning alms for them, and inspiring the most reticent to awaken their conscience. She was totally devoted to the most humble and poorest people, looked after them by providing them with food and clothing and generally helping and comforting them throughout her life.
During the French Revolution
Catherine is the first to help the refractory priests, those priests who refused to swear an oath to the Civil Constitution of the Clergy during the French Revolution. She hid them, so that they can celebrate Mass, and she helped assist them in their work, risking her life multiple times.
Once the revolutionary upheaval had passed, she continued her charitable work, until her death, in 1836.
A large crowd attended her funeral, and her popularity remained very sharp still today in the region of Mauriac. Père Cormier, of the diocese of Saint-Flour founded her cause for beatification. Pope Pius XII declared her Venerable in 1953.
Catherine Jarrige was beatified on November 24, 1996 in Rome by Pope John Paul World War II Her memorial is on July 4.