Abbey-Roads2

Madame Acaire (Barbara Aurillot) essentially brought the Carmelite reform of Teresa of Avila to France.  Although Ven. Mother Anna of St. Bartholomew, protege and confidate of Holy Mother Teresa of Jesus, must in fact be honored as the foundress of the Carmelite reform in France.

Venerable Mother Anna of St. Bartholomew

In heritage, the French Carmel differs somewhat from the original Spanish reform in as much it was influenced by the French spirituality of Cardinal Berulle,  Madame Acaire’s cousin.  It is a difference that may be noted even today in the spirituality of Spanish Carmels and Spanish Colonial Carmels, contrasted with those in France and their descendant French Carmels.

For instance, today in France, the enclosure and wearing of the habit is less traditional, while in Spain and Portugal and Spanish colonial descendant monasteries, enclosure and the habit remain virtually unchanged since the time of Holy Mother St. Teresa.  This may or may not be attributed to the difference of spiritual influences in the nascent French Carmel, that may have led Ven. Anna of St. Bartholomew to Antwerp to found the Belgium Carmel, thus forsaking the French controversies.

Blessed Marie of the Incarnation

Some history on Barbe Acaire:

The first foundation of nuns at Paris was the project of Barbe Acarie, a brilliant and beautiful mother of six who became one of the principal spiritual lights of her age. A mystic who worked tirelessly to relieve the spiritual and material poverty that surrounded her, Madame Acarie attracted to herself the leading religious figures of the day. Among those who frequented her Paris salon were Saint Francis de Sales, Saint Vincent de Paul, André Duval (Regius Professor of Theology at the Sorbonne and Barbe s first biographer), Jacques Gallement, and her young cousin Pierre (later Cardinal) Bérulle, founder of the French Oratory. 11 Of Barbe Acarie’s wide contemporary influence, French historian Henri Brémond writes:

The activity of this woman, an invalid and ecstatic, who died at fifty-two, was miraculous. To her is due the introduction into France of the Carmelite Order founded by S. Teresa, which at her death already numbered seventeen houses on French soil; as much and even more than Mme de Sainte- Beuve, she laboured to develop the Ursulines; the reform of the Benedictine Abbeys owes her much, and countless other works also occupied her; lastly, she knew, grouped, stimulated and directed wellnigh all the leading religious spirits of her day. It is not too much to say that, of all the spiritual hearths kindled in the reign of Henri IV, none burned more brightly or equalled the intensity of that of the Hôtel Acarie.12 - Martyrs of Compiegne  

Bl. Marie of the Incarnation, a former Parisian ’socialite’, was an extraordinary soul, and rightly takes her place among the greatest Saints of France, who nonetheless died a humble sister of the white veil in Carmel. 

Carmel celebrates the feast of Blessed Marie of the Incarnation on April 18th, the same day I left the Carmelite Fathers in the Sothwest Province of St. Therese, now so many years ago.