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Anne de Guigne (1911-1922) began life as a difficult child - proud, bossy and strong-willed. But a profound change took place in her at age 4, and for the rest of her life the "little tyrant" turned all the resources of her heart and will to the practice of perfect obedience. This book describes the turning point in Anne's life, her First Holy Communion at age 5, her intimate love for Our Lord, her love for her little brother and sisters, her remarkable "motherhood" of souls, her purity, efforts in school, wonderful courtesy and beautiful death at age 10. Anne's intercession has been found to be powerful, especially on behalf of children and of "big sinners." In 1933 Anne's body was found to be incorrupt, and in 1990 the Church declared that Anne de Guigne had praticed Heroic Virtue, thus giving her the title of "Venerable." Anne is a beautiful and inspiring true story that is perfect for adults and children alike, for it tells of a 20th-century child who may someday be counted among the great Saints of the Church!

Sujets

Philosophie et théologie

Christian theology

Catholic Church

Christianity

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Publié par	TAN Books
Date de parution	01 mars 1998
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781618903686
Langue	English

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0224€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

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Anne
The Life of Venerable Anne De Guigné 1911-1922
A Benedictine Nun of Stanbrook Abbey
N IHIL O BSTAT : Dom Justin McCann, O.S.B. Censor Deputatus January 8, 1932 I MPRIMATUR : ✠ W. E. Kelly, O.S.B. Abbot Praes. N IHIL O BSTAT : Bernard Griffin, S.T.D. Censor Deputatus I MPRIMATUR : ✠ Thomas Archbishop of Birmingham Birmingham August 20, 1932
First published in 1932 by Burns, Oates & Washbourne, Ltd, London. Retypeset and republished in 1997 by TAN Books with permission of Stanbrook Abbey.
Grateful acknowledgments to the Freundeskreis Maria Goretti e.V., Munich, for use of the pictures on pages 22 and 28 and Afterword material.
Library of Congress Catalog Card No.: 97-60765
TAN Books Charlotte, North Carolina www.TANBooks.com 1997
ANNE
        “I confess to thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them to little ones.”
—Matthew 11:25

Venerable Anne de Guigné 1911-1922
       “Obedience is the sanctity of children.”
— Motto of Anne’s
                                                        First Communion retreat
                                                        (See page 18)
        “Anne never stopped to think whether a thing was pleasant or not if she knew it was the will of God, either for some reason of duty or necessity, or for the good of others. Her will ruled all her actions so that there was perfect order in her life. . . .”
— Mother St. Raymond ,
Anne’s teacher
(See page 80)
DECLARATION OF OBEDIENCE
I n obedience to the decrees of Pope Urban VIII and other Sovereign Pontiffs, we declare that we in no way intend to prejudge Holy Mother Church in the matter of Saints, sanctity, miracles and so forth. Final authority in such matters rests with the See of Rome, to whose judgment we willingly submit.
—The Publishers
CONTENTS
Preface
1. Finding the Way
2. The Great Meeting
3. The Proof of Love Is Work
4. The Apostle of the Nursery
5. The End of the Climb
6. At the Top
Afterword
Prayer
PREFACE
To the 1932 Edition
T HIS is the life of Anne de Guigné, 1 a little girl who died only ten years ago. A short and uneventful life as the world views things, but full of very great events in the eyes of God, who seems to wish that we should know how important she is in the world above, for He allows her to “spend her Heaven doing good upon earth.”
The facts are taken from the French book Anne de Guigné by Rev. Fr. Etienne Lajeunie, O.P., supplemented by the original depositions written by the child’s mother and by her governess, Mlle. B. The Countess de Guigné has corrected various details while reading the manuscript of this book and most kindly supplied the photographs.
Considerable use has also been made of the depositions of the late Mother St. Raymond, a nun of the Auxiliatrice convent at Cannes, who taught the catechism class which Anne attended each year when the family went south for the winter.
The diocesan or “informative” Process, preparatory to Anne’s Beatification, commenced some months ago, when the Bishop of Annecy, Msgr. du Bois’ de la Villerabel, received official authoriza tion from the Sacred Congregation of Rites. The Bishop is himself President of the Tribunal, with Msgr. Hertzog as Postulator of the Cause in Rome, and Canon J. Mugnier, professor at the Grand Seminaire in Annecy, as Vice-Postulator.
The document from Rome was dated Christmas Day, 1931. It seems as if the Christ Child wished to show that He has taken His little friend by the hand, so that she may pass safely through the courts of Rome, where nursery Saints are rare.
It should be mentioned, however, that an occasional use of the word “Saint” is not intended to anticipate in any way the future judgement of the Church. This applies also to the account of various favors attributed to Anne’s intercession. All that is here written is a plain statement of facts which the Church will judge in God’s own time.
See also the Afterword, p. 117 .
ANNE
        “There will be saints among the children.”
—Pope St. Pius X
Chapter 1
FINDING THE WAY
I T was the 30th of July, 1915; the second year of the war.
For one four-year-old girl, this was “the Day of the Lord, great and exceedingly bitter.”
Is it possible to speak of a great and bitter day in the life of a child of four? It is certainly not usual, but this book is about a child who was not usual.
On that July morning Anne awoke to see her mother standing by the bed, and her mother’s eyes were red from a night of tears. Three times in this one year of war the child’s father had returned wounded—now, “Daddy is dead.” And the sword went down into the little one’s soul “even unto the division of the spirit.” This is the absolute truth. It was a dividing point. Behind lay an ordinary childhood, full of promise but stained by many faults. After it came the maturity of holiness.
There are several ways of climbing the mountain of sanctity. Anne’s way was to attempt the face of the cliff. She went straight up, for her time was short. God called her to come up the quickest way, and she came.
* * *
Who was this child? Her family called her Nenette, but she had a good supply of other names besides. Jeanne, Marie, Josephine, Anne, all these had been lavished on the eldest daughter of Jacques, Count de Guigné and his wife, Antoinette de Charette.
Anne’s birth on April 25, 1911, was followed a year later by that of the son and heir, Jacques or Jojo; and then came two little sisters, Madeleine and Marie Antoinette, whose long names soon became shortened to Leleine and Marinette.
Their home was the stately Chateau de la Cour overlooking the Lake of Annecy. “We have as fine a chateau as anyone,” Anne once remarked in a moment of weakness. Certainly it was a home worth loving and a little girl might perhaps be forgiven for boasting of it. That part of Savoy is lovely beyond description, and the chateau stands on a height with all the beauty of the lake spread out below.
This was Anne’s home and here she lived all her life except for a few months each winter when the family went to their house in Cannes.
Some Saints’ biographers gravely assure us that they “showed every sign of sanctity from earliest infancy”! Anne can hardly be said to have done that. In many ways she was a dear child, very loving, intelligent and perfectly frank, but also a most tempestuous little person with an iron will when there was question of getting her own way. She may in fact be said to have shown every sign of naughtiness from earliest infancy!
A doctor can testify that there were no signs of precocious sanctity to be seen in the very troublesome baby he had to deal with. The child was sufficiently ill to cause anxiety and it was imperative to examine her. But Anne did not like the doctor, or perhaps his instruments frightened her. In any case she immediately became a miniature windmill with her arms and legs very busy all at once, and when the doctor tried to hold them: “Take your hat and go!” came the furious command from the crib. The little lady could hardly speak plainly yet, but she knew how to make herself understood. Such scenes were not at all unusual.
There is a photograph taken when she was about three years old which gives a good idea of her character at this time. Eyes, mouth and chin, all are very hard. There is frankness in the little face and courage, great courage, and the power of great love; but self-will is clearly written there. It is the face of one who will follow none but herself.
Anne was in fact a born leader, but during these first four years of her life she was also a little tyrant. Among other children she not only led but drove . Ordinarily, they were usually glad enough to follow, for there was something very attractive about her and she was full of invention and enterprise; but if anybody showed resistance, there was trouble. The tyrant instinct rose, and she carried all before her, even physically sometimes if she had strength enough!
One summer when she was only three years old, Anne was playing with a boy cousin a little older than herself. After some time they came across a large heap of sand. “Let’s climb on top,” suggested the little girl, suiting the action to the word, but the boy held back.
“No, I won’t,” he said, “it’s too high.”
“But I say you must,” retorted his little cousin. “You shall come up, I’ll make you!” and she began to pull and tug. It was a fine fight, but the little girl was winning when their nurse arrived on the scene and separated the pair. Anne could not have won by strength of arm, but her violence frightened the bigger child. It was a battle of wills. Surely she too had trembled at the thought of balancing on top of that heap of crumbling sand which seemed so high to a three-year-old, but if Anne meant to do a thing, fear would never stop her.
About the same time, she and her cousins were taken to see a menagerie. Anne was younger than any of the others, but as usual she took command of the group. “Come along,” her aunt heard her say to one considerably larger than herself, “I’ll lift you up to pat the giraffe!” She was quite serious about it.
All these things showed that there was a power in the child; but how would she use it? Her mother wondered and prayed and “kept all these words in her heart.”
Anne’s heart was the best part of her. She was really wonderfully loving. But here again there was a shadow to the picture, for she was also jealous. She did not love the brother who had succeeded her in the cradle. She wanted the whole of her mother’s attention; her father’s, too, of course, but particularly her mother’s, and now a new baby was sitting on Mother’s lap. It was certainly very hard, unbearable in fact, so Anne came up one day with a handful of sand which she began to rub into the baby’s eyes. It was not fun, very far from it. She wanted to make Jacques cry because her mother had kissed him.
Fortu