Spiritual Profile and Virtues

Cardinal Virtues

Cardinal virtues – prudence, justice, temperance and fortitude in the life of Mother Alphonse Marie If the theological virtues are the source of her spiritual life, the cardinal virtues are the way that source showed itself in her decisions, in her relations with others and in her perseverance in the work of foundation. The following sections are drawn from the document prepared by the congregation for the beatification process.

Prudence

“Do not be afraid, it is my work!”

The Servant of God lived prudence in a heroic way, for in her life no action can be found that had a merely human aim. Everything in her is directed to God, to eternal salvation, to sanctification, to the honour that must be prepared for God, to the salvation of souls. Her constant effort is directed to this end alone.

Very distrustful of herself, from early childhood she sought light and practical advice for her conduct from a devout, wise and prudent guide, Father Reichard. She had the great wisdom to keep him as her spiritual director for life, in the deep conviction that God willed it so. In her interior sufferings she tried, at seventeen, to seek consolation from another confessor; but she quickly recognised her mistake and returned to Father Reichard. From then on she followed his directions always and in everything.

She recommended this prudence to her daughters as well: “O my children, if only you understood how useful it is in temptations to ask your confessor or superiors for advice without delay and to follow their opinion willingly!”

The Servant of God had a very lively fear of God and was extremely sensitive to anything that might disturb the purity of her conscience and her union with God. She reached at once for the most direct and surest means: prayer, penance, flight from the occasion.

When at fourteen she was doing hard work in the fields, she found that she had spent hours without remaining in the presence of God. “After ten days I remembered everything I had resolved on the day of my first holy communion, and I looked at my lukewarmness. Then fear and shame took hold of me and this awakened my fervour again. I took penances to my aid.”

Father Reichard testifies: “Above all she asked the Queen of Virgins to preserve her purity of heart, and she herself watched over this precious treasure with scrupulous care… It is true that not a single impure thought ever clouded this angelically pure soul.”

After a persistent struggle against her chief fault – a certain vehemence of temperament – she attained restraint and discretion to a remarkable degree, as many who came into contact with her testified. She made her decisions soberly, for she was always guided by inspirations from above and by the advice she received – at the beginning of her work as well as in its development: buildings, the opening of houses, relations with the authorities, the selection and discernment of vocations. Although zeal drove her, she never acted rashly or on her own impulse.

What gave her this balance and soberness in deciding was her spirit of prayer and union with God. Father Reichard testifies: “Completely convinced that everything concerning the congregation must be left to God, she plunges in prayer into the Divine Heart of Jesus, in order to obtain everything from him.” She asked the Lord to show her his holy will in accepting postulants, and heard the Lord answer: “My daughter, your prayer pleases me, turn always to me and leave everything to me.”

To her daughters she gave this rule: “At the beginning of her occupations let the Sister of the Divine Redeemer renew her good intention, and let her have in all her undertakings a right and pure intention; let her begin everything in the name of Jesus and Mary.”

As for the aim of her work – the bodily and spiritual care of the poor and the sick – the Servant of God recommends the same prudence to her daughters in words of admirable wisdom:

“Dear children, I want to place in your hands a good means, before you go to the poor and the sick, into difficult circumstances and without help, when you do not know how to begin. I advise you to stand for a few moments beneath the cross and to pray thus: ‚Jesus, teach me what I am to do for this person, give me the fitting means to fulfil your holy will in this poor one and this sick one. O Jesus, I will not leave you until you hear me; I beg you, give this person grace and mercy.‘ Then go with confidence. When I recommend interior prayer to you, it does not hinder your action – on the contrary, the good God will give you all the more insight and knowledge.”

She also knew how to gauge how much effort she could ask of each of her daughters: “It is good, especially at the beginning, to limit one’s resolutions to a short time, so that one does not lose heart at the sight of a work or an obligation whose duration might frighten a weak soul or a novice.”

In carrying out her duties the Servant of God had a constant concern to secure for her daughters living conditions in which the rule could be kept, but also sufficient material conditions so that they could carry out their charitable works regularly and effectively.

“It is part of my duties,” she said to a certain mayor, “to care for the health of my sisters. I therefore ask you to supervise this institution and to take an interest in it so that food and clothing are assured for the sisters. This we ask in all the places where they stay.” And to a parish priest: “I watch strictly that my daughters fulfil the aim of their holy vocation; at the same time it is my great concern that they should always have – as the Apostle says – the necessary food and clothing.”

Mother Alphonse Marie always knew how to unite work with prayer. As a farmer’s daughter she says in her autobiography of her first years: “At five years old I already liked to work.” As a young girl she devoted herself to the duties of her state without any negligence – work in the fields – and while working hard she prayed and remained united with God. So she learned from experience what she was later to teach her daughters well: an intense life of prayer together with the effort that nursing the poor and the sick demands. Father Reichard could testify: “She divided her whole time between work and prayer, or rather she prayed unceasingly, even while she worked.”

She loved and lived complete simplicity. This was perhaps what stood out most in her, and by this quality she impressed all who came into contact with her.

Father Reichard testifies: “The calm and simplicity with which she communicated these revelations to me gave me strong proofs of an immediate action of God.” Bishop Räss says: “I recognised in her all the marks of a privileged soul, of a noble simplicity and an unconditional sincerity.” Abbé Busson writes: “Sincerity, straightforwardness and love of truth are the dominant traits of her personality.”

A certain priest: “I had scarcely entered her room when I was struck by her open manner, although I had expected something of the posing one meets in people who consider themselves favourites of heaven; in her behaviour I could not find the least trace of anything of the kind – it was free of all affectation and bore witness only to an angelic gentleness and a noble serenity that no effort can feign.”

The prudence of the Servant of God showed itself clearly in her conviction that a single novitiate and also the annual retreat in the mother house had to be preserved at all costs, whatever the sacrifices – for she was convinced that this was a vital question for the preservation of a good spirit and for the unity of all the members. She was able to fight and to suffer for the observance of these two provisions. It cost her the hard trial of the separation of the houses in Vienna, Sopron and Würzburg – trials that affected her health so deeply that she never recovered from them.

Justice

Duties towards God and towards one’s neighbour

The Servant of God strove in a heroic way to care for the honour of God. Very early she understood, by a quite particular grace, the rights of the Creator over his creatures and that everything must be given back to God. From then on she directed all her thoughts, all her words and all her deeds throughout her life to this one end.

The sense of the reverence due to God showed itself clearly in the way she prayed, in her recollection, in her humble bearing, in the mortifications she imposed on herself at every opportunity so that her bearing might be more worthy of God’s presence – and this bearing impressed all who came into contact with her and led them to God.

She had a great zeal for the sanctification of Sunday and suffered so much at seeing especially the young amuse themselves in a way very dangerous to the soul, that she urgently begged Father Reichard to permit the rosary on Sunday evening. She went through all the houses of the parish to win people over and to bring them to church at the appointed hour. She was in the habit of decorating the altars, even when she was very tired.

She venerated Mary with a very remarkable devotion. She had absolute confidence in the power of her intercession and invoked her on every occasion; she celebrated her feasts with the greatest piety – she consecrated her congregation to the Immaculate Heart of the Virgin Mary. She dedicated to her the altar of the first convent and had written on its door: “O Mary, conceived without sin.” To her daughters she gave the rosary as the first rule. She recommended them to turn to Mary in all situations, especially when they had to obtain the conversion of sinners.

Mother Alphonse Marie also fervently venerated her patron saints: Saint Teresa and Saint Alphonsus Liguori. Saint Teresa she wished to imitate in her love of God and in patience in suffering. Saint Alphonsus prompted her towards the concrete form of her institute, which was to devote itself to the poorest and most abandoned. Saint Joseph she chose as her first protector and from then on entrusted to him everything she needed; to him was attributed every extraordinary help the young congregation received. She also venerated her guardian angel greatly.

To the Holy Father Pius IX she showed signs of reverence, childlike devotion and unreserved dedication, which can be seen in her words, in the fervent and persevering prayers she sent to heaven during the trials of holy Church in the person of its head, and in the sufferings she joyfully accepted in order to obtain heavenly help for the persecuted pope.

Father Reichard testifies: “The perfect obedience she herself lived with such fidelity she recommended to children towards their parents, to parishioners towards their parish priest, to priests towards their bishops and to all towards the Catholic, Apostolic, Roman Church.” She fervently desired the approval of the statutes by the Holy Father: “O how greatly I long and wish for the approval of our statutes by the Holy See! May God remove all obstacles and obtain this grace for us!” When the approval came, she showed incomparable joy.

The Servant of God was fully aware of what she owed her parents – above all that they had handed on to her the Catholic faith, instructed her in the truths of religion and given her the example of an honest, deeply Christian life. She showed them gratitude by perfect submission in everything that was not against God’s command. She obeyed them when at their word she went out to work in the morning, though she was strongly drawn to attend holy Mass. When she was ill, she suffered at not being able to do her share of work and service for the family. After her father’s death she offered to bear whatever God should will, in order to free him from purgatory.

The Servant of God fulfilled the duties of justice without regard to person. She wanted her work to stand above all in the service of the poor, but she did not neglect the rich either, who also have their needs. She received every visitor with the same kindness and turned no one away.

To her daughters she said: “Rich or poor, you are all equally dear to me. I look only at your vocation, at the fidelity with which you respond to God’s graces.” She looked neither at race nor at nation: “It must be borne in mind that the religious spirit is the spirit of Jesus Christ, that this spirit is the same for all nations and that it can be in harmony with the character and customs of all peoples. The nursing the sisters give to the sick is the same for suffering humanity in every country.”

She was always generous and open-handed. She did not allow the sisters to ask any payment for their nursing. She did not require a dowry from postulants, accepting only what was offered her. The sisters took abandoned poor sick people into their own dwelling. She had extra rations distributed to workmen. She carried, or had carried, bed linen to where the sick had none. She distributed food to the poor, although she herself had no stores.

She was kind to everyone, even when she was bearing the heaviest sufferings. Father Reichard testifies: “She is friendly in spite of her sufferings.” “Mother Alphonse Marie suffers, her goodness is the same, the same kindness.” For every service rendered she showed gratitude.

In her words and deeds she always took great care for truth and sincerity. Towards her spiritual director she was honest and open and hid nothing from him, even when it was extremely painful for her to tell everything. She made a vow to open everything to him. She constantly asked for this sincerity of conscience: “Give me the grace to know myself and to see the obstacles I place in the way of your grace working in my soul. Show me these obstacles so that I may be able to open them to my confessor.”

She was truthful too towards the people who came to her for advice and to whom, by an inspiration of grace, she had to show their vices, their abysses, their faults. Whatever it cost her, she obscured the truth in nothing – and she said everything with the greatest love. Numerous conversions followed these disclosures. She was truthful with her daughters as well: she corrected their faults without lessening their seriousness.

Temperance

“Know that God’s mercy is greater than any weakness.”

The Servant of God lived the virtue of temperance in a heroic measure. She knew how to keep her senses under firm discipline. God’s grace very early showed her the means to be used, and by corresponding perfectly to his inspirations she succeeded in attaining order and harmony in her faculties and in showing perfect measure in everything.

The chief occasions of disturbance in the Servant of God came from her temperament, which inclined to a certain vehemence, to self-will and inflexibility. From the age of six she felt that she had to overcome this obstacle in order to find God better.

“A violent self-will took hold of my soul when I did not obtain what I wanted – but it did not last long. I came to myself at once, I thought that this was not good, I wept over my faults and said to myself: Where shall I end up if I act like this? I must not be disobedient to my parents.”

From then on she overcame it by obedience, imitating “the obedience of the Child Jesus”. Later her love of prayer might have led her to disobedience, but Jesus says to her: “Obedience pleases me more.” She trained herself to treat her brothers and sisters kindly again whenever she felt impatience rising in her.

She came to such peace that Abbé Busson could say: “She complains of abuses and offences, but she speaks of them with regret; when she sometimes insists on something, she does it with regret. No vehemence, no bitter reproaches… No commanding tone in her words. Only rarely does she give advice. Her way of speaking is to wish and to ask.”

The Servant of God loved the poverty of her surroundings and never looked covetously at what belongs to the comfort of life. More than that: she avoided everything that would bring satisfaction to her senses. She loved the hard work in the fields out of love for God, who had laid it upon her. Since she found in it an opportunity to conquer herself, she sought every occasion to cause her body suffering: she lay down on a board, at prayer she knelt on logs.

She made a vow to take no food except what her confessor allowed. Father Reichard confirms that she ate very little. She wanted the food of her daughters to be the food of the poor.

Solitude and silence drew her very strongly. As a child she had a constant need to withdraw to a hidden place in order to pray and meditate. “My love of solitude became more fervent.” Father Reichard testifies: “She sought solitude more and more, so that she might converse more freely and with greater love with her divine Bridegroom.”

By an inspiration from heaven she adopted this rule of conduct: 1) To speak little and only when necessary. 2) To close her ears to useless talk. 3) To guard her eyes from all curiosity. Her speech was full of restraint and dignity. Bishop Räss testifies: “She answered with admirable precision and clarity. Never a single superfluous word, nothing uncertain or confused in her answers.”

In her instructions she stressed above all silence and simplicity. “My children,” she said, “if anyone wants to know what spirit reigns in a religious house, it is enough to observe whether silence is well kept.”

The Servant of God, whose chief fault was self-will, began at once, wherever she noticed it, to renounce her own will. “In order to make progress in mortification and to weaken my self-will, I sought to do what was against my will.”

She made such great progress that Father Reichard could write to Bishop Räss: “She lives the most sublime virtues, a deep humility with great interior and exterior mortification.” Interior sufferings were her lot and lasted all her life. This was laid upon her as a heavy interior mortification and she accepted it generously; she let no one feel anything of it and found in it her peace and joy.

She had to bear numerous contradictions; her sensitive and unyielding nature must have trembled before them, yet no agitation or impatience was ever noticed in her. The people of the house mocked her and called her “Saint Liesel”. She bore everything with unshakable patience; Father Reichard says: “she never complained of malicious talk, nor did she answer any of the many insults hurled at her head.”

Our Lord had announced all these sufferings and contradictions to her: “Suffer, be silent and pray.” She kept this direction conscientiously.

Fortitude

“It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me.”

The Servant of God showed the virtue of fortitude in a heroic degree. According to the world she was weak, without those goods that make the strong and powerful of this earth – she was strong with the strength of God. The word of the Apostle was clearly fulfilled in her: “I can do all things in him who strengthens me.”

She drew this virtue from the spirit of faith and from her ardent love of God. So she became strong from duty. First she sought to know it well, she asked for advice; once she had recognised what she had to do, she was unyielding in carrying it out.

As a child she is aware that she must help her parents; although of rather weak health, she renders them all the small services she can. She likewise considers it a duty to instruct herself in Christian doctrine, but she experiences great difficulties and fights firmly and perseveringly to discover the hidden manna. As a young woman she forces herself to hard work in the fields and gives herself to it without negligence. As foundress and superior general she lets herself be discouraged neither by responsibility nor by difficulties of every kind.

In work she showed herself tireless. Father Reichard could say: “Without ceasing she feels herself irresistibly driven to her duties as superior. Not only does she never avoid a duty, but she feels bound to do still more, in spite of the temptations to reluctance that she feels.” Although she suffered, she often had to set out on journeys, because duty urgently required it.

In illness she was heroically patient. She let no complaint be heard, despite the length and severity of the trial. “During my continual sufferings I always remembered the request I had addressed to God since childhood: that I might keep a pure heart, that I might attain holiness and that I might fulfil his holy will in everything – and I often thought: ‚Oh, I will gladly suffer, if only I attain this.‘”

She showed heroic strength of soul in anguish and in spiritual dryness. She proved it already at a young age. “As a child I already hid my interior suffering and complained only to the good God.” At seventeen dryness, repugnance and all the sufferings of soul bound up with it fell upon her; then she said: “O Jesus, even if I do not pray well, I will go on praying, because my confessor has commanded it.”

In a time of dryness she turns to Jesus: “My Jesus, even if I feel no love for you in my heart, I am ready to remain faithful to you until death; teach me how I am to deal with this kind of suffering.” Father Reichard testifies: “She remained faithful and persevering in this suffering and continued to fulfil God’s will.”

She had to endure torments from the evil one, who wanted to confuse and terrify her by threatening her visibly and heaping curses and blasphemies upon her. Then she recollected herself, recognised that it was the tempter, took up her cross and found peace again.

Amid adversity she showed a cheerful soul, in order to encourage her neighbour. All who came into contact with her testified to this. She says so too in her instructions: “What a good example is given to the world by souls who in their heavy sufferings are calm and surrendered, do not complain, suffer in patience and silence and receive with a cheerful, serene face all who come to them.”

“Let your sufferings sadden neither your face nor your thoughts. Fight always against sadness in yourselves, for the encouragement of your sisters and of all who see you. Peace, serenity and joy befit the children of God.”

The virtue of fortitude showed itself clearly when it was a question of engagement for the honour of God and the salvation of souls. Submissively and respectfully, but with unshakable firmness, she carried on the struggle to remove the reserve Father Reichard had towards the beginning of a work humanly condemned to failure. She went on building it without slackening, though fear pierced her inwardly, for she was aware of her weakness and her nothingness.

Sister Lucretia testifies: “Abbé Reichard one day tried to temper the Mother’s zeal: ‚What, another new house?‘ he said to her. The Servant of God was just entering the refectory when this sentence was being read: ‚Thus may the name of God be spread over all the earth.‘ She took the book and went to the superior: ‚Look, Father, the good God wants our work, which is his, to spread; have the goodness to consent.‘”

She was persevering. She fought so well against her own will that no self-will can any longer be seen in her, only an unshakable will to reach God by the exercise of virtue. “We will go on praying,” she said, “and will never stop until we are heard.”

She overcame human respect. As a child she had such zeal to win others for Christ that she experienced being despised and mocked for it. She was tempted to keep silent, but said to herself: “Only let the good God not be offended and let the salvation of souls be secured. I am doing my duty, that is what must be done, even if the whole world despises me.”

To her daughters she laid down strategic lines of battle: “Fight with courage. Be like soldiers who return to the fight each day with the same fearlessness. No weakness, no cowardly self-pity – always do the opposite of what nature asks.”

We pray for her canonization

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She was beatified in 2018. For her to be declared a saint, a miracle through her intercession is needed — and the prayer of those who ask for it.

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