Saint Julie Billiart

Feast day:April 8.

Julie Billiart was born in Cuvilly, France in 1751. Her life was marked by a great desire to make known the goodness of God. She began teaching about God's goodness at an early age, and despite a paralysis that crippled her at the age of 22.

Saint Julie Billiart led an exceptional faith life through prayer.
Teaching was in Saint Julie Billiart’s blood. As a child, she played school and eventually started a teaching order of nuns, the Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur. When she was a child she made short mental prayers and had a great love of the Eucharist. She suffered poor paralyzing health for 30 years but was miraculously cured in 1804.

During the French reign of terror, she was hunted for hiding priests and fled many times from authorities. In 1816, she founded 15 convents. She also nursed starving and wounded people following the Battle of Waterloo. She died 8 April 1816 (aged 64) in Namur, Belgium

Julie Billiart was Beatified on May 13, 1906 by Pope Pius X and Canonized n June 22, 1969 by Pope Paul VI

Patronage against poverty; bodily ills; disease