Venerable Antoinette Fage (7 November 1824 – 18 September 1883) was a French

Catholic The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...

nun. With Father Etienne Pernet, she founded the

Little Sisters of the Assumption The Little Sisters of the Assumption is a Roman Catholic religious institute founded in France in 1865 by Antoinette Fage (Marie of Jesus) (1824–1883) and Father Etienne Pernet. The declared work of the congregation is the nursing of the sick ...

. She took the name Marie of Jesus.

Life

The daughter of Jean Fage, a soldier, she was born in

Paris Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...

7 November 1824. Her mother, a seamstress, was deserted by her husband. Desperately poor, her grandmother, Madame Mutinot, provided some assistance. In July 1830 while returning from the market, Madame Mutinot was shot dead at

the barricades The Barricades ( lv, Barikādes) were a series of confrontations between the Republic of Latvia and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics in January 1991 which took place mainly in Riga. The events are named for the popular effort of building ...

.''Mère Marie de Jésus'', Longmans, Green & Company, 1917
/ref> Antoinette was diagnosed at a young age with curvature of the spine. Her growth was stunted, leaving her below average height, with one shoulder higher than the other. Antoinette was orphaned at the age of thirteen and cared for by friends of her grandparents. Around 1850, she began working at a sewing workshop to support herself, and joined the Sodality of

Our Lady of Good Counsel Our Lady of Good Counsel ( la, Mater boni consilii) is a title given to the Blessed Virgin Mary, after a painting said to be miraculous, now found in the thirteenth century Augustinian church at Genazzano, near Rome, Italy. Measuring the image ...

, whose members visited the poor to distribute food. She then joined the

third order of St. Dominic The Third Order of Saint Dominic ( la, Tertius Ordo Praedicatorum; abbreviated TOP), also referred to as the Lay Fraternities of Saint Dominic or Lay Dominicans since 1972, is a Roman Catholic third order affiliated with the Dominican Order. Lay ...

. She also became involved in the charitable activities of the Archconfraternity of Notre-Dame-des-Victoires. She visited the poor with food and small offerings of money, becoming so well-known that in 1861, the Mesdames de Meynard asked her to become manager of an orphanage for girls. The house, whose capacity the directors set at eighteen, sheltered girls between the age of twelve and eighteen and taught them skills so that they could find work upon leaving. When the house could take in no more, she found families who would board the girls. She met Etienne Pernet in 1864 Pernet told her of his plan to form a new religious order. In 1865, she formed the first community of the new group, dedicated to caring for the sick poor in their own homes. Fage took final vows in 1878; she died in 1893. The congregation was officially approved by the Pope in 1897. By that time, the order had communities in England, Ireland and the United States.

Legacy

The Antoinette Fage Association in Rouen responds to local needs by providing a daycare center, and an after-school center with help with school work, among other services.Association Antoinette Fage
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References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Fage, Antoinette 1824 births 1883 deaths 19th-century French nuns Founders of Catholic religious communities