A few days later heaven seemed to respond to this blind trust, which Mother Alphonse had toward St. Joseph. A postulant, Margarete Chevreux, was the means through whom St. Joseph made known God’s intentions. Since the Alsatian dialect was strange to her, she found it hard to make herself understood. She was so disappointed that she determined to return home. But Mother Alphonse Marie, to whom she had entrusted herself, said to her, “You may go in peace, but you will return.”

God had designated her to be the mistress of novices and the right hand of Foundress. We know her by the name Sister Maria Joseph. St. Joseph, whom she had chosen as her Patron, had commended her to remain, and had also given valuable information for Father Reichard. On March 24, after the nine o’clock instruction, she told him that poverty and humility should always reign in the convent of Niederbronn. At eleven o’clock, after a prayer before the altar of St. Joseph, she again turned toward the Superior who was then saying his Breviary in the sacristy. But let Father Reichard himself relate the incident, “She came to me and said, ’St. Joseph commands me to come to you and tell you that I was disobedient this morning and did not tell you everything’. She had omitted the following, ’The Reverend Mother had a revelation, but I don’t know what it was about; St. Joseph told me that it was not necessary for me to know, but that it was for his glory’. I went immediately to Sister Alphonse Marie. She reflected a moment before she answered, ’Yes, this morning during the Holy Mass, just as I was praying to St. Alphonsus as the protector of our Order, I heard a voice from St. Joseph’s altar, which distinctly said to me, ’It is not St. Alphonsus but St. Joseph who is the protector of this house. He will preserve the good spirit of the house and no one will be able to harm it.

In order to guide and direct this Congregation, you will receive the same graces as St. Teresa’. The Reverend Mother at the same time saw St. Joseph as he built the new Convent.” (PERRIN, J.M.: The Life of Mother Alphonse-Marie, p. 62).