Many prominent personalities in Quebec, such as Bishop François de Laval, sought out Mother Marie for advice, and she counseled them wisely. She took an interest in native languages and composed a French-Algonquin and a French-Iroquois dictionary. She made friends among the Algonquins and the Hurons, even though their enemies, the Iroquois, would attack her buildings and her Sisters. Often at night, when everyone else was asleep, the candle in her cell continued to burn as she wrote spiritual books and countless letters, most often to her beloved son, who had become a Benedictine monk. Exhausted by a lifetime of self-sacrifice and illness, Mother Marie passed away peacefully in 1672 after bidding a final farewell to her students. As one journalist said centuries later, “The great man of New France was a woman!” Marie of the Incarnation was canonized by Pope Francis in 2014, without having performed any miracles. Her feast day is April 30. 69
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