St. Mary Magdalen Postel

St. Mary Magdalen Postel (28 November 1756 – 16 July 1846), born Julie Postel at Barfleur in Normandy, opened a school for girls as a young woman and consecrated herself to God. During the French Revolution, when priests loyal to Rome were hunted, she turned her home into a secret refuge — hiding fugitive clergy, sheltering the Blessed Sacrament, and even carrying Communion to the dying at great personal risk during the years when public worship was forbidden.

After the Revolution, at nearly fifty, she founded a religious congregation, taking the name Mary Magdalen and adopting the Rule of the Third Order of St. Francis; it became known as the Sisters of the Christian Schools of Mercy, devoted to educating the young and serving the poor. The community struggled for years in poverty before establishing itself at the ruined abbey of Saint-Sauveur-le-Vicomte, which she restored. She governed it until her death at eighty-nine and was canonized by Pope Pius XI in 1925.