NEW SAINT FOR EUCHARISTIC ADORATION

While we are doing this Blog on Eucharistic Adoration, I found this
newly blessed who devoted her life to Christ crucified, helping many priests in their own vocation and encouraging devotion to Jesus in the Eucharist.

A personal encounter with MOTHER ALPHONSE MARIE EPPINGER inspired “conversions which were far more miraculous than the raising of the dead,” recounted her spiritual director, Father Jean-David Reichard. The nineteenth century French mystic and religious founder was beatified September 14 in her native Strasbourg after a miraculous physical healing through her intercession was confirmed.

Mother Alphonse Marie had “the gift of seeing people, what is in their souls,” wrote Abbe Glöckler, who knew Eppinger personally and later wrote her biography.

“She had a right word and advice for everyone. God gifted her with a good mind and right judgment. Many left her with the decision to change their lives and to walk the right path.”

Her special role was in the spiritual care of priests. She was able to “scrutinize human hearts” and “reveal things that were hidden,” using these spiritual gifts to advise the priests who would “visit her in abundant numbers” seeking counsel.

The eldest of eleven children, Elizabeth Eppinger, was born into a peasant family in 1814, in Niederbronn, France.

Her devotion to Christ crucified deepened through her experience of suffering through a serious illness with which she struggled intermittently throughout her life. It kept her bedridden for years at a time, prayerfully immersed in the mystery of the cross.

Her convent

It was during her illness that Mother Alphonse received her first vision of Christ and that her mystical gifts became well known.

At the request of her bishop, she founded the Congregation of the Sisters of the Most Holy Saviour in 1848, taking the religious name Sister Alphonse Marie.

She asked her sisters to meditate daily on the passion of Christ, and she encouraged devotion to Eucharistic adoration. In addition to their devotions, the sisters also aided the sick during epidemics, including a cholera outbreak in 1854.

Mother Alphonse Marie died in 1867. In his Sunday Angelus address, Pope Francis expressed gratitude for  Mother Alphonsus Marie’s beatification:

“Let us thank God for this courageous and wise woman who, in suffering, in silence, and in prayer, witnessed the love of God especially to those who were sick in body and in spirit.”