Saint Marguerite D Youville: The Founder Of The Grey Sisters

Today is the feast of Saint Marguerite d’Youville, the first Canadian-born saint and founder of the Grey Sisters. Widowed shortly after her marriage, she reared her two children and managed the family business. Following a religious conversion, she and four other women formed a lay group dedicated to charity and took simple vows.

Called “tipsy women” because of the d’Youvilles’ alleged profits from brandy trafficking, in 1747 they were put in charge of the bankrupt Hôpital Général de Montréal. In French, grise means both ‘tipsy’ and ‘grey.’ What was meant as a slight to the women became the inspiration for their name–the Grey Nuns. In 1755, the women became the Sisters of Charity or the Grey Nuns (Sœurs grises).
Many Montrealers attested to
By age 12, she had left school to help her widowed mother.

By twenty-years-old, she was married to a man who treated her indifferently, who sold liquor illegally to the Native people, and who gambled away the profits. Nevertheless, she cared for him with compassion until his death. By the time she was thirty, she had lost her husband, her father, and four of her six children. Despite all the hardships, she continued to serve.

After her children had grown up, she and a small group rescued a failing hospital, which became the Hôtel Dieu, where they cared for the needy.

The Grey Sisters came to Ottawa in 1845 under the direction of Mother Élisabeth Bruyère. They desired to work with the poor and care for Bytown’s indigent. They served the poor by every work of charity: Ottawa’s first hospital and orphanage, and education at many levels. They continue to serve here and abroad. They are a rich part of the Church’s history of social
Several mystics and theologians came out of this movement, including Saint Jean Eudes, Saint Vincent de Paul, and Jean-Jacques Olier, founder of the Society of the Priests of Saint-Sulpice. The members of that Society were the Lords Proprietor of the island of Montreal from 1659. They were in charge of the parish of Notre Dame. One of them became Marguerite’s spiritual director.
In 1727, she joined the Confraternity of the Ladies of the Holy Family. She then experienced a mystical encounter with God the Eternal Father. Marguerite had a life-long strong devotion to God the Father and His Divine Providence. This trust in the goodness of God and His justice towards all enabled her to achieve charitable works of astonishing scope, even by today’s standards.
Marguerite d’Youville left to future generations a spiritual legacy marked by an unconditional compassion for the poor and an inextinguishable faith. Her example will remain forever a source of inspiration for those who work for the coming of a civilization of love and justice.
The name given to God under the aspect of His care for us is the Providential God, or Divine Providence. This trust in Divine Providence made Marguerite bold in her choice of