Sacred Heart Newsletter – No.17, September 2014

Abstract

St. Claude La Colombière (1641-82), born at Saint-Symphorien-d’Ozon in southeastern France, studied at the Jesuit school in Lyons from the age of 9. He entered the novitiate in Avignon in 1658 and taught for five years (1661-66) in the Jesuit academy in that town. In 1666, Claude gave a stirring panygeric on St. Francis de Sales, Bishop of Geneva, who was canonized that year. Strongly dedicated to the Heart of Christ, Saint Francis de Sales had founded the Religious of the Visitation with St. Jeanne de Chantal and had written to her: “Truly, our little congregation is the work of the hearts of Jesus and Mary. Our Savior in dying gave us birth through the opening of his Sacred Heart.” Claude was sent to Paris for theology in the renowned College of Clermont, not far from the College of Saint-Barbe, where Saints Ignatius, Francis Xavier and Peter Faber had studied.....