He studied at Mauriac, then went to the seminary in Clermont-Ferrand in 1786 he was ordained priest on March 26, 1789, and became the assistant priest ( Vicaire) of Drugeac, near Mauriac, in October 1790. The 11th of 14 children, François Filiol was born at Bouval, near Mauriac, on August 22, 1764, and baptized the following day. She saved all the priests she looked after, except one. She had immense support in Mauriac and the civil authorities simply couldn’t believe that someone of such a wretched appearance could trick them as Catherine did. She was arrested several times but the Revolutionary tribunals she appeared before set her free each time. Sometimes she’d sing the Marseillaise or put a cockade on her hat. “When leaving Mauriac I’d make my act of contrition, put my rosary in my hand and set off. People said to her, “Weren’t you afraid?” She went into areas where even the strongest men would not venture after dark. Her eye was open to all that was going on, and was always on her guard. They would pray to Our Lady of Miracles to help them. She also escorted them to remote locations as they were in mufti, she could pretend to be their wife, often scolding them to fool the troops and gendarmes. Working under cover of night, Jarrige visited the priests in their hideaways, providing them with vestments, wine, wafers, and sacred vessels, so that they could celebrate Mass. Priests who would not prêter le serment, as it was called, went into hiding, often in the forests, or caves in the straw in barns in the lofts of houses or dovecotes. Priests were asked to swear an oath to the state, which many regarded as apostasy.Ī death sentence awaited these non-jurors and their helpers. She became a Third Order Dominican, taking vows and becoming a member of the tertiary order, but really came into her own in 1791 when the French Revolution’s leaders began persecuting the Catholic Church. The youngest of seven children, she worked on the farm before becoming a lacemaker when she was 20.ĭevout, even from childhood, she looked after the poor all her life, begging to provide food and clothing for them. Catherine Jarrige (1754-1836), known as Catinon Menette (“Cathy the little nun”) in the local patois, was born on a farm at Doumis in the Cantal. There is no coincidence that this has produced saints. The Basilica of Notre Dame des Miracles at Mauriac has a quite wonderful silence (sadly lost to most of us today). On the outside wall is a plain cross that commemorates the Abbé Filiol, executed on May 14, 1793. A characteristic 16th-century statue of the Virgin and Child, a Vierge â l’oiseau, flanks the chancel arch, while the altar in the south chapel has a retable of the virgin donating the rosary to St. Michael and the Dragon, and the Evangelistic symbols, while above the high altar is the venerated statue of Notre Dame des Miracles (said to have stopped droughts and a cholera outbreak in 1832). Inside you first see a splendid, generously proportioned Romanesque font, its colored and sculpted bowl decorated with figures including the Baptism of Christ, Christ in Majesty, the Agnus Dei, St. Though mutilated, with Our Lady and the Apostles headless, it is of high quality. The west portal has a Romanesque sculpture (c. The church of Notre Dame des Miracles is a largely Romanesque building, made into a minor basilica by Pope Benedict XV in 1921, the largest and finest church in the region. One of the few towns in this rural idyll, Mauriac stands on the zero meridian. When you hear what sounds like cow bells, it is not ringing in your ears or even a Mahler symphony it most probably is the bells of the Cantal cows. The Cantal is one of the emptiest parts of France.
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