Saint Colette

Biography

Saint Colette of Corbie (1381–1447) was a French Franciscan abbess and the founder of the Colettine Poor Clares, a reform branch of the Order of Saint Clare. Born Nicolette Boilet in Corbie, Picardy, to a carpenter and his wife who were already advanced in years, she was orphaned at seventeen and entrusted to the care of a Benedictine abbot. After living for a time as a Franciscan tertiary and then as an anchoress, she received a calling to restore the Poor Clares to the strict observance of Saint Clare’s original rule. With the support of the Avignon claimant Benedict XIII, who professed her and appointed her superior, she set about reforming existing convents and founding new ones across France, Savoy, and Flanders. She established or reformed some seventeen monasteries and influenced the wider Franciscan reform of her day. Known for her deep austerity, devotion to the Passion of Christ, and gifts of prayer, she died at her convent in Ghent on 6 March 1447. Her relics rest at the Monastère Sainte-Claire in Poligny, France. She was canonized in 1807 and is the patroness of women seeking to conceive, expectant mothers, and the sick. Her feast is kept on 6 February.