Blessed Hyacinthe-Marie Cormier

Hyacinthe-Marie Cormier (8 December 1832 – 17 December 1916) was a French Dominican friar and religious priest, who served as the 76th Master of the Order of Preachers from 1904 until 1916. Cormier was beatified by Pope John Paul II on 20 November 1994. Cormier was born Louis Stanislas Henri Cormier on 8 December 1832, the Feast of the Immaculate Conception, in Orléans, France, of a well-to-do family of merchants. His father died when he was still young, after which his mother took him and his only brother Eugène to live near their uncle who was a priest. His brother Eugène died shortly afterwards. Cormier received his initial education at home. Later he studied in the school of the Christian Brothers. In 1846, at the age of thirteen, Cormier entered the minor seminary of the Diocese of Orléans. As a student he excelled in literature and even more so in music. He was proficient at playing the flageolet, the organ, and the ophicleide, and had a fine singing voice. Cormier maintained his enthusiasm for music throughout his life, especially sacred music. Franz Liszt heard him play the organ on one occasion and declared him to be a "master of the art". Advancing to the major seminary of the diocese of Orléans which was conducted by the Society of the Priests of Saint Sulpice, Cormier studied philosophy and theology. He was admitted into the Third Order of Saint Dominic while a seminarian. Cormier graduated at the top of his class. He was ordained in 1856 by Félix Dupanloup, Bishop of Orléans. Cormier was granted a dispensation to be ordained without having reached the canonical age. Shortly after his ordination for the diocese Cormier felt called to enter the first Dominican Order, which had been officially re-established in France in 1850 after its suppression by the French government. His inspiration for joining the order reportedly was the holy life of the Dominican nun Agnes of Jesus.