Saint Louise Thérèse de Montaignac

Louise-Thérèse de Montaignac de Chauvance (14 May 1820 - 27 June 1885) was a French Roman Catholic who founded the pious union of the Oblates of the Sacred Heart (fr. Oblates du Coeur de Jésus) in 1874. She was known for her staunch devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus and the members of the union ought to renew the society "by their example and their holy lives". De Montaignac de Chauvance's life witnessed her catering to catechetical formation and promoting the Sacred Heart in France. She was beatified on 4 November 1990. Louise-Thérèse de Montaignac de Chauvance was born in France in 1820 as the fifth of six children to Raimondo Amato and Anna de Raffin; her father worked as a civil servant. Her lineage also tied to noble families of France linked to the former kingdom. She made her First Communion on 6 June 1833. Her education commenced at the age of seven. She studied at the Faithful Companions of Jesus College and later from 1837 at the Paris des Oiseaux that the Augustinians ran. It was in her late childhood that she began to read the Gospel and the spiritual writings of Teresa of Ávila. Bone disease first struck her in 1842 and would continue to plague her for the remainder of her life; such disease often left her bedridden. She made a private vow to the Sacred Heart of Jesus Christ on 8 September 1843. Chauvance founded the Society of Tabernacles in 1848 with an emphasis on the Eucharist and in 1854 founded the Opera Adoration of Reparation. It was around that time in 1848 that she - with her siblings and parents - moved to Montluçon and moved in with her maternal aunt de Raffin. In 1844 she and her aunt began the process of establishing a new community devoted to the Sacred Heart, but the project stalled with de Raffin's death on 4 December 1845. Chauvance sought the counsel of her spiritual director, Father Gaume, and decided not to join the Carmelites as she intended, but rather to continue the work she and her aunt began.