Saint benedict joseph labre biography of william and mary

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Benedict Joseph Labre.

His parents , Jean-Baptiste Labre and Anne-Barba Grandsire, belonged to the middle class and so were able to give to their numerous offspring considerable opportunities in the way of education. His early training he received in his native village in a school conducted by the vicar of the parish. The account of this period furnished in the life written by his confessor, Marconi, and that contained in the one compiled from the official processes of his beatification are at one in emphasizing the fact that he exhibited a seriousness of thought and demeanor far beyond his years.

Even at that tender age he had begun to show a marked predilection for the spirit of mortification , with an aversion for the ordinary childish amusements, and he seems from the very dawning of reason to have had the liveliest horror for even the smallest sin. All this we are told was coexistent with a frank and open demeanor and a fund of cheerfulness which remained unabated to the end of his life.

During the six following years which he spent under his uncle's roof, he made considerable progress in the study of Latin, history, etc. A love of solitude, a generous employment of austerities and devotedness to his religious exercises were discernible as distinguishing features of his life at this time and constitute an intelligible prelude to his subsequent career.

At the age of sixteen he resolved to embrace a religious life as a Trappist , but having on the advice of his uncle returned to Amettes to submit his design to his parents for their approval he was unable to win their consent. He therefore resumed his sojourn in the rectory at Erin, redoubling his penances and exercises of piety and in every way striving to make ready for the life of complete self-annihilation to which the voice within his soul seemed to be calling him.

After the heroic death of his uncle during an epidemic in September , Benedict, who had dedicated himself during the scourge to the service of the sick and dying, returned to Amettes in November of the same year.

The first daughter parish of Saint Benedict Joseph Labre Parish was Saint Mary, Gate of Heaven established in Father Fahey endeared himself to his.

His absorbing thought at this time was still to become a religious at La Trappe , and his parents fearing that further opposition would be resistance to the will of God fell in with his proposal to enter the cloister. Benedict's petition at Val-Sainte-Aldegonde was unsuccessful but he was directed to another monastery of the same order at Neuville.

There he was told that as he was not yet twenty there was no hurry, and that he must first learn plain-chant and logic.