SAINT COLETTE OF CORBIE

- Saint Colette or Nicolette as she was sometimes known was a religious reformer who founded
17 Franciscan convents and brought many others back to their original rule despite much
opposition and abuse.
 Original name is Nicole Boellet.
 Born in the village of Corbie, in the Picardy region of France, on 13 January 1381.
 Died in Ghent, County of Flanders, Duchy of Burgundy; 6 March 1447 (aged 66).
 Her father is Robert Boellet and her mother is Marguerite Moyon.
 Venerated in Roman Catholicism.
 Beatified on 23 January 1740 & 23 July 1740 by Pope Clement XII.
 Canonized 24 May 1807 & 24 November 1807 by Pope Pius VII.
 Feast - March 6.

EARLY LFIE
 She was born Nicole Boellet (or Boylet) in the village of Corbie, in the Picardy region of
France, on 13 January 1381 to Robert Boellet, a poor carpenter at the noted Benedictine
Abbey of Corbie, and to his wife, Marguerite Moyon. Her contemporary biographers say that
her parents had grown old without having children, before praying to Saint Nicholas for help
in having a child. Their prayers were answered when, at the age of 60, Marguerite gave birth
to a daughter. Out of gratitude, they named the baby after the saint (Saint Nicholas) to whom
they credited the miracle of her birth. She was affectionately called Nicolette by her parents,
which soon came to be shorted to Colette, by which name she is known.

LATER LIFE
 After her parents died in 1399, Colette joined the Beguines but found their manner of life
unchallenging. Joining a Benedictine order as a lay sister, most likely to avoid an arranged
marriage, she again became dissatisfied. In September 1402, Colette received the habit of the
Third Order of St. Francis and became a hermit under the direction of the Abbot of Corbie,
living near the abbey church. After four years of following this ascetic way of life (1402–
1406), through several dreams and visions, she came to believe that she was being called to
reform the Franciscan Second Order and to return it to its original Franciscan ideals of
absolute poverty and austerity.

LATE LIFE (FOUNDRESS)

 In October 1406, she turned to the Antipope Benedict XIII of Avignon who was recognized
in France as the rightful pope. Benedict received her in Nice, in southern France, and allowed
 her to transfer to the Order of Poor Clares. Additionally, he empowered her through several
papal bulls, issued between 1406 and 1412, to found new monasteries and to complete the
reform of the Order.
 With the approval of the Countess of Geneva and the aid of the Franciscan itinerant preacher,
Henry de Beaume (her confessor and spiritual director), Colette began her work at Beaune, in
the Diocese of Geneva. She remained there only a short time. In 1410, she opened her first
monastery at Besançon, in an almost-abandoned house of Urbanist Poor Clares. From there,
her reform spread to Auxonne (1412), to Poligny (1415), to Ghent (1412), to Heidelberg
(1444), to Amiens, to Pont-à-Mousson in Lorraine, and to other communities of Poor Clares.
During her lifetime 18 monasteries of her reform were founded. For the monasteries which
followed her reform, she prescribed extreme poverty, going barefoot, and the observance of
perpetual fasting and abstinence.
 In addition to the strict rules of the Poor Clares, the Colettines follow their special
Constitutions, approved in 1434 by the Minister General of the friars, William of Casale, and
approved in 1448 by Pope Nicholas V, again in 1458 by Pope Pius II, and in 1482 by Pope
Sixtus IV.

SAINT COLETTE’S DEATH

 Saint Colette died of natural causes on March 6th, 1447. But no one really knows how she
died, people say old age others say sickness. She died at the age of 66. She lived a good life
full of helping people in any way she could.

VENERATION AND CANONIZATION

 Colette was beatified 23 January 1740 by Pope Clement XII and was canonized on 24 May
1807 by Pope Pius VII. She is invoked by childless couples desiring to become parents and is
also the patroness of expectant mothers and sick infants.
 She was canonized because she always helped everyone, even when she was too poor to help
herself. She is a patron saint against the death of parents, against fever and against headaches.

LEGACY
 Colettine nuns
- Colettine nuns are found in France, Belgium, Germany, Ireland, Japan, Norway, the
Philippines, Spain, the United Kingdom, and the United States.
 Colettine friars
- Together with friar Henry of Beaume, Colette also inaugurated a reform among the
Franciscan friars (who were known as the Coletans), not to be confounded with the
Observants. These friars formed a unique branch of the Order of Friars Minor under
Henry's authority but remained obedient to the authority of the Minister Provincial of the
 Observant Franciscan friars in France and never attained much importance, even there. In
1448, they had only thirteen friaries, all attached to monasteries of the Colettine nuns.
Together with other small branches of the Friars Minor, they were merged into the wider
Observant branch in 1517 by Pope Leo X.

MIRACLES
According to biographers, Colette performed numerous miracles, including multiplication of
food or wine and effecting cures, partly after her death.
 Helping a mother in childbirth
- While traveling to Nice to meet Pope Benedict, Colette stayed at the home of a friend.
His wife was in labor at that time with their third child, and was having major difficulties
in the childbirth, leaving her in danger of death. Colette immediately went to the local
church to pray for her.
- The mother gave birth successfully and survived the ordeal. She credited Colette's
prayers for this. The child born, a girl named Petronilla, later entered a monastery
founded by Colette. She would become Colette's secretary and biographer.
 Saving a sick child
- After the pope had authorized Colette to establish a regimen of strict poverty in the Poor
Clare monasteries of France, she started with that of Besançon. The local populace was
suspicious of her reform, with its total reliance on them for the sustenance of the
monastery. One incident helped turn this around.
- According to some sources, a local peasant woman gave birth to a stillborn child. In
desperation, out of fear for the child's soul, the father took the baby to the local parish
priest for baptism. Seeing that the child was already dead, the priest refused to baptize the
body. When the man became insistent, out of frustration, the priest told him to go to the
nuns, which he did immediately. When he arrived at the monastery, Mother Colette was
made aware of his situation by the portress. Her response was to take off the veil given to
her by the Pope, when he gave her the habit of the Second Order, and told the portress to
have the father wrap the child's body in it and for him to return to the priest. By the time
he arrived at the parish church with his small bundle, the child was conscious and crying.
The priest immediately baptized the baby.