Today, March 10, is the commemoration of Saint Marie-Eugénie de Jésus.
Foundress of the Religious of the Assumption.
Marie-Eugenie was born in 1817 in Moselle, France. She was raised in a well-to-do and educated family with almost zero faith in God. Her father Jacques Milleret lost all their fortune when she was 13. Because of this, her parents separated, with her brother living with her father and the future foundress with her mother Eleonore-Eugénie de Brou.
Sadly, Eleonore-Eugénie soon died of cholera. Around this time, Marie-Eugenie wondered what God had in store for her. She would find out on Christmas Day 1829 when her First Communion completely changed her life. When she received the Sacred Host for the first time, she felt completely immersed in God.
She felt called to the religious life after listening to the sermons of the Dominican Henri Lacordaire at the Cathedral of Notre Dame in Paris, France. She ended up founding a religious congregation devoted to education in 1839. The group would be known as the Religious of the Assumption.
She died in 1898 at age 80 of natural causes. She was beatified in 1975 by Pope St. Paul VI. Pope Benedict XVI canonized Marie-Eugenie in 2007.