Thérèse Couderc

The work of Thérèse Couderc is intertwined with the birth of the Congregation of Our Lady of the Cenacle. In Lalouvesc, a place of pilgrimage to the tomb of Saint John Francis Regis, Father Terme had opened a hospice to welcome female pilgrims. In 1828, he entrusted its direction to the young Sister Thérèse, who was about twenty-three years old. Under her leadership and with the assistance of Terme, the reception of pilgrims gradually evolved toward the organization of spiritual retreats inspired by the Exercises of Saint Ignatius of Loyola, which would become the specific vocation of the community. Thus was formed the Congregation of Our Lady of the Cenacle, whose name evokes the Cenacle where the apostles, gathered around Mary, awaited the Holy Spirit. After the death of Father Terme in December 1834, and in a context of financial difficulties, Thérèse was removed from her position as superior and replaced. She accepted this dispossession without revolt or bitterness. The institute she had nurtured in its early days would subsequently develop, opening houses in France and then abroad, entirely dedicated to the accompaniment of retreats.

The holiness of Thérèse Couderc was accomplished far from any human recognition. Set aside from the work she had founded, she went through years of humiliation and obscurity which she experienced as a path of purification and union with God. From this trial was born her central spiritual doctrine, that of "surrendering oneself": a self-abandonment that goes, in her own words, beyond dedication, giving, and even ordinary abandonment, to the point of "dying to everything and to oneself." On June 26, 1864, she received a striking interior grace during which, she says, the word "surrender" was as if revealed to her in all its scope, accompanied by a vision of the goodness of God spread over all things. For her, "the surrendered soul has found paradise on earth," because it tastes there the peace that constitutes the happiness of the elect. This spirituality of trust and total surrender into the hands of God, lived in the humility of daily life, established her reputation for holiness, which spread after her death.

The cause for the beatification of Thérèse Couderc was introduced in Rome in 1927. Pope Pius XI declared her venerable in 1935, recognizing the heroic nature of her virtues. After the approval of two miracles attributed to her intercession, she was beatified by Pope Pius XII on November 4, 1951. With two new miracles having been recognized, Pope Paul VI proceeded with her canonization on May 10, 1970, in Rome, thus inscribing her in the catalogue of saints. Her liturgical feast is set for September 26, the anniversary of her death. A co-founder and figure of humility, she is honored as a "virgin and founder" of the Congregation of Our Lady of the Cenacle. Sources agree on the progression of this cause, which highlighted, beyond the work of foundation, the hidden holiness of a religious sister who had long been obscured. Her canonization contributed to making her spirituality of "surrender" more widely known beyond the sole circle of the Sisters of the Cenacle.

The legacy of Thérèse Couderc is transmitted first through the Congregation of Our Lady of the Cenacle, which she helped to found. Faithful to her intuition, the Sisters of the Cenacle dedicate themselves to spiritual accompaniment, formation, and retreats inspired by Ignatian spirituality in several countries. Her teaching on "surrendering oneself" continues to nourish the prayer and reflection of many faithful, who see in her a master of trusting abandonment to the will of God and of humility in trial. Lalouvesc, in the Ardèche, remains an essential place of memory: it is there that she rests and where the cradle of the work is found, near the sanctuary of Saint John Francis Regis. A figure of discreet holiness, lived in self-effacement and stripping away, Thérèse Couderc is proposed as a model to those who seek God not in the brilliance of great works, but in the humble fidelity of daily life and the total gift of self.