Blessed Émilie d’Oultremont d’Hoogvorst
Also known as
- Émilie d’Oultremont van der Linden d’Hooghvorst
- Marie of Jesus
- Mary of Jesus
- Maria di Gesù d’Oultremont
Profile
Born to the nobility, the daughter of Count d’Emile Oultremont de Wégimont a de Warfusée, a diplomat who represented King Leopold I to the Vatican. From childhood Émilie had a great devotion to the Eucharist and the Sacred Heart of Jesus; she later developed a great admiration of Saint Ignatius of Loyola. Married to Victor van der Linden, Baron d’Hooghvorst in 1837. Mother of two boys and two girls. She sought out Jesuits for spiritual guidance. Widowed in 1847. When her sons entered college in France, she decided to move, too.
On 8 December 1854, the day the dogma of Mary‘s Immaculate Conception was proclaimed, Émilie experienced a profound spiritual experience and announced she was going into religious life. With a small group of young women, she founded the Institutum a Maria Reparatrice (Sisters of Mary Reparatrix) on 1 May 1857 in Strasbourg, France. On 2 May 1858 Emilie made her vows, taking the name Mary of Jesus. Soon after her daughters joined the Sisters, which caused even more turmoil in her family; few had supported her entering religious life, and many complained that the girls had followed only for her mother‘s sake.
In 1859 Mother Marie received a request for help from Jesuit missionaries in Madras, India. The Sisters expanded to India in 1860, England in 1862, Belgium in 1863, Mauritius in 1866, France, Italy, Ireland, Spain, and then Jerusalem in 1888. The mother house was relocated from Strasbourg to Rome, Italy.
Born
- 11 October 1818 in Wegimont near Liège, Belgium
- 22 February 1878 at the home of her son Adrien in Florence, Italy of natural causes
- buried in the church of Saint Bonaventure in Rome, Italy
- 23 December 1993 by Pope John Paul II (decree of heroic virtues)
MLA Citation
- “Blessed Émilie d’Oultremont d’Hoogvorst“. CatholicSaints.Info. 4 July 2023. Web. 4 May 2024. <>