Blessed Mary Catherine of St. Augustine

Mary Catherine of St. Augustine, OSA (French: Marie-Catherine de Saint-Augustin) (3 May 1632 – 8 May 1668) was a French canoness regular who was instrumental in the development of the Hôtel-Dieu de Québec in the colony of New France. She has been beatified by the Catholic Church. She was born Catherine de Simon de Longpré in the town of Saint-Sauveur-le-Vicomte, then part of the ancient Province of Normandy in France. Raised primarily by her grandparents, as a child she showed a marked concern for the needs of the sick and the poor. In 1644 she entered the monastery of the Canonesses of St. Augustine of the Mercy of Jesus in Bayeux, which operated the Hôtel-Dieu of the city. She was received into the novitiate of the Order on 24 October of that year, at which point she was given the religious name by which she is now known. In the year 1648 she was among those of the Order who responded to the appeal to help the canonesses in Quebec who had founded the Hôtel-Dieu there for the needs of the colony. On 31 May, then aged 16, Catherine set sail for the colony. While en route, she fell victim to the plague, from which she was cured in what seemed a miraculous way, which she attributed to the protection of the Blessed Mother, through the means of a statue of her which she had brought with her from France and which is still revered as miraculous. She arrived in the port of Quebec on 19 August. After Catherine's arrival, she began the task of nursing the sick in the hospital of the monastery, attending to both their spiritual and physical needs. She learned the languages of the First Peoples of the region to serve them better. She would work to bring the patients closer to God. The superior of the hospital later testified that she and the other canonesses could tell that Catherine would spend long periods in prayer and undertake severe mortifications of her body in support of her spiritual mission, to the point of endangering her own health.