Biographical profile

Before we begin to speak about Elisabeth Eppinger (Bl. Alphonse Marie), it will be good to know the places where she spent her childhood and youth and where she later founded her work.

Niederbronn, a strikingly situated little town in the Alsatian countryside, nestles against the eastern foot of the Vosges, where the road from Strasbourg to Bitche runs. It links Alsace with Lorraine. The surroundings of Niederbronn are rich in variety.

The origins of Niederbronn reach far back into the past. The town won its fame long before the Christian era through the discovery of thermal springs. Their healing power and the charm of the surroundings drew many spa guests and travellers. In the wider area there are traces of Ligurian and Celtic inhabitants. Later, about 100 years before Christ, Germanic tribes flooded into Alsace, of whom the Triboci settled in the northern part of the country. Under the rule of Julius Caesar there was peace in the land. Its inhabitants derived great benefit from Roman culture. Northern Alsace still bears traces of the Roman epoch. West of Niederbronn, on the summit of the Wasenburg, stand the ruins of a Roman fortress called „specula“.

Christianity mediated a strong faith here and brought about the development of a Latin-Germanic culture.

But what, beside this glorious past, does the life of a simple peasant girl mean, born on 9 September 1814 in Niederbronn? A first encounter with Elisabeth Eppinger hardly deserves any notice, and yet she will soon draw the attention of her contemporaries. People judge her differently: some revile and suspect her, others revere and admire her as extraordinarily graced and renowned. Many come to her, listen to her counsel and commend themselves to her prayers.

At the time when Elisabeth saw the light of the world, France was living through the end of the grave upheavals of the great revolution and the imperial era. The country was exhausted by uprisings and war. Political passions subsided for a time, yet flared up with still greater violence and lasted throughout the whole of the 19th century, and with a short interruption last to this day.

God gave this so humiliated nation a new revival – a great religious renewal.

He awakened in all strata of the nation apostolic souls filled with zeal, who worked in their time as pioneers. We have in mind the heroes of the fiery word such as Père Lacordaire and Montalembert, the heroes of charity such as Père Chevrier, Sister Rosalie, Pauline Jaricot, holy missionaries and priests such as the Curé of Ars and Père Libermann. We think of the great founders of active and contemplative orders: Jeanne Jugan sends her sisters to abandoned old people, Marie de Jésus devotes herself exclusively to the service of the sick in poor quarters, Père Chaminade trains Christian teachers for an uneducated nation. At the same time God endows numerous mystics with extraordinary graces and visions: Thérèse Durnerin, Catherine Labouré, Bernadette Soubirous.

Elisabeth was sickly all her life, yet God honoured her with numerous visions, including ones that related to political events. These were to be an impulse for her herself and then also for great sinners to awaken from sin.

Elisabeth knew well, however, that one cannot shut oneself up in visions, but that the most important thing is to live by faith. Of course she too was deeply moved by outward influences: the suffering of the Pope, the temptations of the world and especially the fate of France.

A personality, however, must be seen as a whole. We do not wish to conceal anything about Elisabeth, but we know that a strong spirit dwelt in her weak body. Great theologians are of the same opinion. Above all, however, what matters is the heroic degree of her virtues and the work she brought to completion for the greater honour and glory of God.

At the time of the Reformation the Eppinger family tree – in comparison with others – belongs among those that remained faithful to the Catholic faith.

Her parents were devout and God-fearing farmers who lived honestly and strove to give their eleven children a good Christian upbringing. Hard and exhausting work did not prevent them from praying the rosary together every day. Elisabeth was of a gentle nature and serious mind, and very early on signs of God’s grace can be discerned in her.

From the age of three she already wants to pray by herself the basic prayers of a Catholic Christian, the Our Father and the Hail Mary. The more she comes to know God, the more she also becomes aware of the nature of sin as disobedience and ingratitude, wrong and offence, evil and injustice towards God. She resolved to fight against every kind of sin.

In this struggle she is strengthened by meditation on the passion and death of the Redeemer, and at the same time it moves her to voluntary acts of penance and reparation.

With joy and great attention she takes part in catechism instruction under the guidance of the parish priest Jean David Reichard, who was a priest of holy life and a good judge of people.

It is he who is soon convinced that Elisabeth is a child who cooperates with God’s grace in an extraordinary way.

At fourteen Elisabeth makes her first Holy Communion. At that time her confessor allowed her to receive Holy Communion every eight days. It is precisely through the Eucharist that she strengthens her union with God.

At fifteen she feels wholly drawn to God. In the person of her spiritual father Jean David Reichard she has wise, strong and purposeful guidance. She becomes ever more aware that God allows trials in order to free her from everything earthly, so that in due time she may place herself entirely at the disposal of God’s designs.

For several years she enjoys good health. Later, however, hard and heavy trials come upon her.

With interruptions – for seven and a half years – she is ill and confined to bed.

Yet the way she accepts this new suffering, the way she prays and so deepens in the „Mysterium crucis“, the mystery of the cross, makes a very favourable impression on all who seek her out.

During her illness she receives mystical gifts, especially the extraordinary gift of discernment.

Through this gift she can search human hearts, reveal hidden things and foretell future events.

Even in her grave illness Elisabeth does not give up the thought of a life consecrated to God, which she has long cherished in her heart.

After an attempt to enter an already existing order, God’s providence arranged matters so that, with the consent of the diocesan bishop in Strasbourg, on 28 August 1849 she founded the new Congregation of the Daughters of the Divine Redeemer, answering to the conditions of the time.

Inspired by the spirituality of Saint Alphonsus, she takes the religious name Sister Alphonse Marie. She regards as her first priority the creation of a religious family whose spirit will be the Spirit of Jesus Christ, and the same will be reflected in prayer, in sacrifice, in service and in love for the poor, for children and for the sick.

Wholly consumed in love for God and for people, she died on 31 July 1867 in Niederbronn, at a time of great growth and expansion of the congregation.