Saint Jeanne-Elisabeth Bichier de Ages

Joan Elizabeth Lucy Bichier des Âges (French: Jeanne-Élisabeth-Lucie Bichier des Âges) (5 July 1773 – 26 August 1838) was a French religious sister, commonly referred to as Elizabeth Bichier. Together with Andrew Fournet, she founded the Sisters of the Cross, Sisters of St. Andrew, a religious congregation which was established for the care of the poor and the instruction of rural children in the Diocese of Poitiers in 1807. She also helped to inspire the founding of a community of priests dedicated to missionary service, the Congregation of the Sacred Heart of Jesus of Betharram. She has been declared a saint by the Catholic Church. Bichier was born in 1773 in the Château des Âges, home of her aristocratic family near the village of Le Blanc, then in the ancient province of Poitou (now the department of Indre), located in the Central Loire Valley. She was one of the couple's four children and later was commonly called Elizabeth by her family. She was baptized that same day at the local Church of Saint-Génitour. Her mother was a religious person and ensured that her daughter was taught how to pray and the basics of the Catholic faith. Elizabeth proved a ready student, already feeling drawn to prayer from her childhood. After the outbreak of the French Revolution, the local population resented the restrictions placed on the practice of the Catholic faith. Within a few years, this unrest led to various popular uprisings. During this period, her oldest brother, Laurent, chose to emigrate from France. Shortly after that, their father fell ill and later died on 16 January 1792. Her brother's departure was to cause the remaining great distress, as the regulations of the Civil Constitution of the Clergy put into law by the National Constituent Assembly, which had declared all property of the Church to be declared national goods, were then being applied to émigrés like Laurent Bichier des Âges.