BLONDIN, MARIE-ANNE SUREAU, BL.

Foundress of the Congregation of the Sisters of St. Anne; baptized as Marie Esther Blondin; b. April 18, 1809, Terrebonne, Quebec, Canada; d. Jan. 2, 1890 at the motherhouse of Lachine near Montreal. Born to the poor, illiterate farmers Jean-Baptiste Blondin and Marie-Rose Limoges, Esther learned to read and write in her 20s while a domestic, then boarder, at the local convent of the Notre Dame Sisters. She began her novitiate there but was forced to leave due to ill health in 1833. During her tenure as a parochial school teacher in Vaudreuil, she came to understand that the Church mandate for sexually segregated education contributed to the high rate of illiteracy, especially among girls. In 1848, she sought and received permission from Bp. Ignace Bourget to found a religious congregation to establish coeducational country schools. Blondin became the first mother superior of the six sisters of St. Anne at its founding (Sept. 8, 1850), although she was asked to resign on Aug. 18, 1854 due to a conflict with the community's chaplain, Fr. Louis-Adolphe Marechal. Under obedience to the bishop, she refused to accept re-election in 1854, 1872, and 1878. For a time she was directress of the St. Geneviève Convent, until recalled in 1858 to the motherhouse at St. Jacques de l'Achigan (now St. Jacques de Montcalm near Joliette). There and at Lachine (to which the motherhouse was transferred in 1964) she was served as laundress (1859–1890). She was a continual example to her community of charity and humility, punctuated by her request to make her final confession to and forgive her persecutor, Fr. Marechal. Blondin's cause was opened in 1950 by Abp. Paul-Émile Leger. She was declared venerable (May 14, 1991) and beatified (April 29, 2001) by Pope John Paul II.

Bibliography: L'Osservatore Romano, Eng. Ed. 18 (2001), 1, 6–8; 19 (2001), 7, 10. c. mailloux Esther Blondin: prophète pour aujourd'hui (Montreal 1987). m. j. de pathmos A History of the Sisters of Saint Anne, tr. sr. marie anne eva (New York 1962).

[k. i. rabenstein]