Marie-Anne Rivier

Marie-Anne Marie-Anne Foundress of the Congregation of the Sisters of the Presentation of Mary. no longer hid the goal toward which her constant efforts had tended. The workers of the past, having become, through the care of the one they called their mother, skilled teachers, asked to be part of the new Congregation. All obstacles were removed, thanks to the solicitude of a good man, M. Pontanier, pari sh priest of M. Pontanier Parish priest of Thueyts who supported the foundation. Thueyts. The slanders spread against the venerable servant of God by one of her coadjutrices did not hold up before the evidence of the facts and the admirable virtues of the holy foundress. M. Vernet, vicar general of Mgr d'Avia, archbishop of Vienne, and administrator of the diocese of Viviers, gave Marie-Anne and her sisters permission to organize themselves definitively into a community. Some time later, Mgr d'Avia and the bishop of Mende, Mgr de Mons, fully approved the Constitutions of the new community. Yet no trial was lacking for the venerable foundress. Defection of most of her religious, incessant persecutions on the part of the government of the Empire and even of the Restoration, perfidious and lying insinuations, shortage, famine, abandonment, despair, sorrow, moral pains, her Christian heroism triumphed over all obstacles.

Twenty years had not yet passed before the establishment at Thueyts could no longer suffice for the new requirements. It became necessary to consider moving the motherh ouse elsewhere. Bo Bourg-Saint-Andéol Definitive seat of the Congregation from 1819. urg-Saint-Andéol offered undeniable advantages. The purity of the climate, the fertility of the soil, and mainly the fortunate position of the town on the banks of the Rhône, determined Marie-Anne to fix the seat of her Congregation there permanently, which took place in 1819. She purchased, at the gates of the town, a former Visitandine convent ru Révolution Period during which the saint's relics were hidden and lost. ined by the Revolution and which had become communal property.

It was there that, on February 3, 1838, this humble daughter of the mountains, whose memory is blessed each day by the children of the people, passed away in the peace of the Lord. She had the joy of seeing, before her death, branches of her Congregation established in Alais, Pont-Saint-Esprit, Aix in Savoy, Marseille, Bordeaux, Moulins, Orange, in the Haute-Loire, the Cantal, and the Lozère. Today, the Congregation of the Sisters of the Presentation counts more than two hundred establishments, not to mention the school houses that the members of this Congregation direct in the most neglected villages of the south of France.

The Venerable Marie-Anne Rivier had, before her death, a great reputation for holiness which she had acquired and earned through her heroic virtues. This reputation only grew after her death, because of the miracles that occurred at her tomb through her powerful intercession. It was then that, to respond to the most ardent wishes of the populations, Mgr Guibert, then Bishop of Viviers, had all the documents relating to the life of this holy woman gathered and sent them to Rome, requesting the introduction of the cause of the venerable religious. On May 7, 1833, the Sacred Congregation of Rites issued a favorable opinion on the introduction of this cause. On May 12 of the same year, the Sovereign Pontiff Pi us IX Pie IX Pope who canonized Josaphat in 1867. signed the decree of introduction and gave full powers to the Sacred Congregation of Rites Sacrée Congrégation des Rites Roman body that advised on the extension of a saint's cult. to proceed with the subsequent acts and to have the necessary inquiries opened on this subject. The pending trial for this purpose was ratified on September 27, 1864.

Analecta Juris Pontificii.

FOURTH DAY OF FEBRUARY

ANNIVERSARIES AND COMMEMORATIONS.

Jean-Baptiste Badiu, born in Moylieu (Isère), priest of the diocese of Grenoble; condemned to death as a fanatic by the criminal commission of Lyon, at the age of fifty-six. 1794. — Jacques-Raymond Bardonèche, born in Saint-Jacques-des-Arnêts (Rhône), parish priest in the diocese of Lyon; condemned to death as a counter-revolutionary and for preaching fanaticism, by the revolutionary commission of Lyon, at the age of fifty-six. 1794. — Joseph Badiu, priest, born in Moylieu (Isère); condemned to death for refusal of the oath by the revolutionary tribunal of Lyon; executed at the age of forty-one. 1794. — François Daussun, born in Toulouse, priest of the diocese of that name; arrested in 1793 as a non-juror; sent to Bordeaux in 1794 to be deported overseas; imprisoned in the fort of Le Bi, then transported while ill to the Saint-André hospital; died in that place at the age of fifty-seven. 1795. — Michel Betron, priest and canon-baron of the collegiate church of Saint-Just in Lyon; born in the diocese of Chartres around 1734; condemned to death for refusal of the oath by the revolutionary tribunal of Lyon, at the age of sixty. 1794. — Gombaut, parish priest of the Saint-Gilles parish of Caen (diocese of Bayeux); refused the oath of the Civil Constitution of the Clergy; left his parish and took refuge in Paris; moved to Rouen at the end of 1792, then returned to Caen to stay with a friend; discovered and denounced by one of his parishioners to whom he had done much good; arrested and thrown into the prisons of Caen, condemned to death as a refractory by the criminal tribunal of the department of Calvados. 1794. — Sébastien Grange, born in Colombes (Isère), parish priest of Biol (diocese of Grenoble); stripped of his parish in 1791 for refusal of the oath; did not leave France following the deportation law; arrested by the persecutors of Lyon and condemned to death as a counter-revolutionary, at the age of fifty-six. 1794. — Nicolas Laurent, born in Mâcon (Saône-et-Loire) in 1726, priest affiliated with the diocese of Lyon as a canon of the collegiate church of Villefranche-en-Beaujolais and chaplain to the Ursuline nuns of that city; arrested in Villefranche towards the end of 1793 and taken to the prisons of Lyon; condemned to death as a refractory by the criminal tribunal of that city. 1794. — Pierre Ruscles, born in Beauregard-l'Évêque (Puy-de-Dôme) in 1716, parish priest of Taluyers (Rhône); refused the oath of the Civil Constitution of the Clergy and was expelled from his parish; took refuge in Lyon; did not leave France at the time of the deportation law; arrested after the siege of Lyon; also refused the oath of liberty-equality; condemned to death as a refractory priest by the revolutionary commission of that city; executed at the age of seventy-eight. 1794. — Jacques Roux, born in Lyon, priest, canon of the knights of the primatial-metropolitan church of that city; refused the revolutionary oaths and did not leave France at the time of the deportation law; arrested after the siege of Lyon; condemned to death as a refractory priest by the revolutionary commission of that city; executed at the age of sixty-one. 1794. — Soubry, priest, former Antonine religious, of a very advanced age; refused the oath of the Civil Constitution of the Clergy; lived peacefully in the village of Saint-Laurent-d'Aguy (Rhône); arrested at the age of eighty, taken to Lyon De Brito Portuguese Jesuit and missionary to India, martyred in 1693. and imprisoned in the Recimes prison; died in that place. 1794.

De Brito, Portuguese Jesuit and missionary to the Indies, martyred in hatred of the religion by the infidels. 1693.