St. Madeleine Sophie Barat
Biography
Born in Joigny, France, in 1779, Madeleine Sophie was the younger daughter of a wine cooper. She was educated by her elder brother well beyond the norm for young women of her era. She was thus well-suited for leadership of a religious community dedicated to prayer and education. At the age of twenty, guided by a priest, Joseph Varin, Sophie and three other young women consecrated themselves to the Sacred Heart of Jesus in Paris, on November 21, 1800. This action is considered the beginning of the Society, the purpose of which is to make known the revelation of God’s love. Centered in personal and communal prayer, Sophie and her first companions set out to give young women a classical education grounded in religion and to impart practical skills. After many difficulties partially related to political conditions in post-Revolutionary France, in 1815, they began to call themselves the Society of the Sacred Heart.
Sophie’s goal was to educate girls so that they could have a transforming influence in society. She believed that women must make themselvPrayer should be our support, the relief of our hope.
She was capable of doing what men do: act on society so as to transform it. Her vision of education, rooted in her experience of Christ and her own education, gave rise to a complete and coherent system of pedagogical thought responding to the conviction that our natural identity is to be God’s beloved.
As new members joined the original group, additional houses were opened to operate both boarding schools and free schools for girls of the working class. In 1806, Madeleine Sophie, as Mother Barat (women religious took the title Mother or Sister in addition to their family name), was elected superior general. During her 59-year period of leadership in this role, the Society of the Sacred Heart grew to include more than 3,500 members, who operated 84 Sacred Heart boarding schools and 74 free schools in several countries of Europe, the Americas, and Algeria.
Mother Barat had the ultimate responsibility for all of these, and several presented challenges at different times. An example was the Hôtel Biron in the rue de Varenne in an extremely fashionable section of Paris. The prominent school was so allied with the aristocracy that the Society’s reputation was beginning to suffer. Mother Barat was advised to remove the school head, Eugénie de Gramont, herself an aristocrat and an associate of Madeleine Sophie almost from the beginning. Mother Barat could not see doing that. Instead, she herself moved into the house to undertake a reform. At the same time, Eugénie’s health began to decline, and she soon died after full reconciliation with Mother Barat. Madeleine Sophie’s way of handling the problem illustrates her loyalty to her friends and her way of maintaining unity. She governed through the relationships she created. All her life she surrounded herself with RSCJ to whom she gave confidence and with whom she formed friendships, even with people of different ages and different points of view. The 14,000 extant letters testify to these relationships.
Madeleine Sophie Barat died in Paris on May 25, 1865. She was canonized, that is, declared a saint by the Catholic Church in 1925.