Her Amerindian pupils were always few in number and often died early. All things considered, however, regard for her missionary work was poor. On the other hand, she was also a devoted missionary, teaching and assisting Amerindian girls and women and raising funds for her mission. She was more reserved about her mystical ecstasies, which she confided only to select people such as her son. Over the years she also became the thoughtful director of conscience of many of her correspondents. Considered a sensible spiritual adviser, she was frequently chosen as the mistress in charge of the probationers of her convent. On the one hand, she was an expert in speculative theology, which she taught to her fellow nuns. By merging contemplation and action, she typified the mystics of the early seventeenth century. Two Ursulines, Marie de Savonni ères de La Troche (1616 –1652) and C écile Richer (1609 –1687), accompanied her and helped her found, the same year, the first teaching convent in North America.Īfter a long life of ecstatic visions, letter writing (more than 10,000 in all), and down-to-earth missionary work, Marie Guyart died in Quebec in 1672. She succeeded in going to New France in 1639 with the help of a large network of supporters that extended from her close relatives to Anne of Austria, queen of France (1601 –1666). By then she had decided on the great project of converting souls.
In 1631 she entered Tours' Ursuline convent, leaving her son in her sister's care, and pronounced her vows after two years of probation as a novice. Raised her only son Claude by herself while running her brother-in-law's shipping business for more than six years until she decided to retire from society.
Married to the silk manufacturer Claude Martin in 1617, but widowed two years later, she Nothing is known of her education or how she developed such a talent as a writer. Marie Guyart was born in Tours ( France) to parents who operated a bakery. In New France, she was a star it was almost compulsory for every newcomer to the colony to visit her, for she could provide information not only on the natives' languages and customs, but also on the settlers' living conditions. As the first female missionary outside Europe, she exemplified female religious patronage and activism, which led to the development of social welfare in early modern Catholic Europe and its colonies. Her extensive correspondence reveals a profound spirituality combined with a remarkable sense of organization and outstanding linguistic skills. Marie Guyart of the Incarnation was a leading figure of the Catholic mission to the Amerindians of New France she was also a theologian (she was called "the Saint Teresa of the New World"), a spiritual adviser, mystic, businesswoman, and founder of the Ursuline convent in Quebec ( Canada). MARIE DE L'INCARNATION (1599 –1672), French mystic and missionary.
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