ST ISABELLE OF FRANCE - 26 FEBRUARY

 

ALL SAINTS CELEBRATED IN FEBRUARY

 All Saints celebrated on the 26th of February

Prayer to the Angels and the Saints

Heavenly Father, in praising Your Angels and Saints we praise Your glory, for by honouring them we honour You, their Creator. Their splendour shows us Your greatness, which infinitely surpasses that of all creation.

In Your loving providence, You saw fit to send Your Angels to watch over us. Grant that we may always be under their protection and one day enjoy their company in heaven.

Heavenly Father, You are glorified in Your Saints, for their glory is the crowning of Your gifts. You provide an example for us by their lives on earth, You give us their friendship by our communion with them, You grant us strength and protection through their prayer for the Church, and You spur us on to victory over evil and the prize of eternal glory by this great company of witnesses.

Grant that we who aspire to take part in their joy may be filled with the Spirit that blessed their lives, so that, after sharing their faith on earth, we may also experience their peace in heaven. Amen.

ST ISABELLE OF FRANCE 

Saint Isabelle (Isabel) was the daughter of Louis VIII and of his wife, Blanche of Castille, born in March, 1225; died at Longchamp, February 23, 1270. 

PIETY AND MODESTY

Saint Louis IX, King of France (1226-70), was her brother. When still a child at court, Isabel, or Elizabeth, showed an extraordinary devotion to exercises of piety, modesty, and other virtues. By Bull of May 26, 1254, Innocent IV allowed her to retain some Franciscan fathers as her special confessors. She was even more devoted to the Franciscan Order than her royal brother. 

SHE WAS DETERMINED TO DEDICATE HER LIFE TO GOD 

She not only broke off her engagement with a count, but moreover refused the hand of Conrad, son of the German Emperor Frederick II, although pressed to accept him by everyone, even by Pope Innocent IV, who however did not hesitate subsequently (1254) to praise her fixed determination to remain a virgin. 

THE PLANS FOR BUILDING A CONVENT

As Isabel wished to found a convent of the Order of St Clare, Louis IX began in 1255 to acquire the necessary land in the Forest of Rouvray, not far from the Seine and in the neighbourhood of Paris. 

THE RULE

On June 10, 1256, the first stone of the convent church was laid. The building appears to have been completed about the beginning of 1259, because Alexander IV gave his sanction on February 2, 1259, to the new rule which Isabel had had compiled by the Franciscan Mansuetus on the basis of the Rule of the Order of St Clare. These rules were drawn up solely for this convent, which was named the Monastery of the Humility of the Blessed Virgin (Monasterium Humilitatis B. Mariæ Virginis). The fast was not so strict as in the Rule of St Clare; the community was allowed to hold property, and the sisters were subject to the Minorites. The first sisters came from the convent of the Poor Clares at Reims. 

THE IMPROVED RULE

Isabel herself never entered the cloister, but from 1260 (or 1263) she followed the rules in her own home nearby. Isabel was not altogether satisfied with the first rule drawn up, and therefore submitted through the agency of her brother Louis IX, who had also secured the confirmation of the first rule, a revised rule to Urban IV. Urban approved this new constitution on July 27, 1263.

THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE TWO RULES

The difference between the two rules consisted for the most part in outward observances and minor alterations. This new rule was also adopted by other French and Italian convents of the Order of St Clare, but one can by no means say that a distinct congregation was formed on the basis Isabel’s rule. In the new rule Urban IV gives the nuns of Longchamp the official title of "Sorores Minores inclusæ", which was doubtlessly intended to emphasise closer union with the Order of Friars Minor. 

HER HOLY DEATH

After a life of mortification and virtue, Isabel died in her house at Longchamp on February 23, 1270, and was buried in the convent church. After nine days her body was exhumed, when it showed no signs of decay, and many miracles were wrought at her grave. In 1521 Leo X allowed the Abbey of Longchamp to celebrate her feast with a special Office. 

THE HISTORY OF THE ABBEY HAD MANY VICISSITUDES

On June 4, 1637, a second exhumation took place. On January 25, 1688, the nuns obtained permission to celebrate her feast with an octave. The history of the Abbey of Longchamp had many vicissitudes. The Revolution closed it, and in 1794 the empty and dilapidated building was offered for sale, but as no one wished to purchase it, it was destroyed. In 1857 the walls were pulled down except one tower, and the grounds were added to the Bois de Boulogne.

(From Catholic Encyclopedia, 1913)