The Price of Truth Is Worth It

A statue of Blessed Mother Marie Anne Blondin, the founder of the Order of the Sisters of St. Anne. Dennis Jarvis/CC BY-SA 2.0

Pure love for others, moral firmness, and just the right knack for handling injustice: These are three great abilities exemplified in the life of one 19th-century French Canadian woman.

Mother Marie Anne Blondin (1809–1890), foundress of the Catholic teaching order the Sisters of St. Anne, was a woman who knew how to act for the betterment of one’s social group, and at the same time, subordinate even this to ideals of goodness, truth, and love.

The St. Anne's Schoolhouse in Victoria, Canada, was used by the Order of the Sisters of St. Anne. Ymblanter/CC BY-SA 4.0

She was born Esther Blondin in 1809, a poor peasant woman with few prospects for education or advancement. Moreover, she was a French Catholic in Canada, an English Protestant nation.

Nevertheless, Esther held deeply the one thing that mattered most of all to her, and that was her faith in God. This is evidenced both by the known devotion of her parents, and by her sayings later in life, such as her belief that living God’s will “was heaven on earth.” One can see from her later life that this faith in God was inseparably joined with an intense love for all people, particularly poor youth.

Cherishing Ideals

From the point of view of material success, at first Esther did better than would have been expected. She had to work hard from an early age and didn’t learn to read until she was 22, yet she eventually became a teacher and then, after much thought and prayer, decided that she was called to start a religious order dedicated to teaching poor farm children like she had been.

Moreover, she intended this order to teach children of both sexes, the first of its kind in Canada. The Sisters of St. Anne were approved by the Bishop of Montreal, and Esther took the religious name “Marie Anne” and became its first superior.

Defending Ideals

Very soon after, trouble started for her in the very church that Mother Marie Anne desired to serve. The priest assigned as chaplain to one of her convents encroached on her legitimate authority by trying to take over the schools’ administration, contrary to the order’s founding constitution and the original agreement with the bishop.

The same priest attempted to prevent any of the sisters from confessing to any other priest but himself. These actions were clear abuses of Catholic Church law and practice, and Mother Marie Anne feistily resisted them with her characteristic zeal.

Things went from bad to worse; the bishop sided with the chaplain. She was gradually demoted, first from her position as superior, and then from all leadership, and finally, sent to work in the laundry room of one of the convents, humiliated and slandered.

Suffering for Her Ideals

Mother Marie Anne didn’t resist these commands. From her perspective, the rightful authorities had to be obeyed in all things except in what was objectively evil. It would be just as wrong to resist her bishop’s commands regarding herself as an individual, as it would have been to give in to the unjust and illegitimate demands of the chaplain. She could not genuinely serve the poor without serving God, and serving God meant adhering to truth, and adhering to truth meant obedience to the authorities of what she believed to be the church founded by God, even if it hurt.

Mother Marie Anne, now just Sister Marie Anne, lived the rest of her life doing laundry for the community she had started. Not a bitter word is recorded from her. In fact, when asked by one novice why she, the foundress, was in the laundry room, she responded: “The deeper a tree sinks its roots into the soil, the greater are its chances of growing and producing fruit.”

One of the only photos of Blessed Marie Anne Blondin, taken at age 80 after she had spent decades relegated to obscurity. Public Domain

In 1890, Mother Marie Anne died in obscurity, free from bitterness. She died a champion of the poor, as her order had been teaching poor children for 40 years. She died as incredibly brave women, brave enough to do the very things that brought about her humiliation. She died as a nameless friend to the many women who became sisters of St. Anne, all by their own free choice, not to mention the many sisters who heard friendly words and counsel from the lowly laundress through the years.

Finally, she lived out the truth that truth is always worth following, regardless of what temporary or material harm results.