Etienne Pernet and Antoinette Fage
Here are just a few of the characteristics of our Founders presented via:
A portrait
An objet
Writings they loved
A place
Their writings
A manuscript
A portrait
Antoinette
Etienne
These two portraits date from roughly the same period: 1865, at the time of the Congregation’s founding.
Antoinette wears the little bonnet that would later become the one worn by postulants in the congregation. At the time, Etienne was ‘very thin, delicate in appearance, with a long face (…) and eyes that read your soul’, according to the testimony of a Lady Servant who knew him in 1866.
An objet
Antoinette
Etienne
These two objects show the extent to which both Antoinette and Etienne wanted to feel close to the members of their religious family, her daughters in the case of Antoinette, and her spiritual father in the case of Etienne.
Favorite text or quote
We lack information about the writings that the founders loved. We must therefore make assumptions about quotes or excerpts that may have touched them or shaped their personality or spirituality. In both cases, I have chosen letters in which the spiritual father of each of the two founders (Father Pernet in the case of Antoinette, Father d’Alzon in the case of Etienne) assures and reassures them of their place at their side.
Antoinette
Letter of Etienne Pernet to Antoinette on January 22, 1866:
“I open myself to you, my daughter, you must see it, you are doing the same on your side; this is a guarantee of a good and lasting understanding. I am convinced that it will be so until the end, until we have accomplished our entire task.”
Etienne
Letter from Father d’Alzon to Father Pernet, September 11, 1849:
« I can assure you, my dear friend, that you are the most mistaken in the world to believe yourself a stranger among us […], and I assure you, I see you as a son whom I love with all my heart. »
A place
No photos have been taken of this sewing workshop, where the young Antoinette worked before becoming director of an orphanage. It was here that she began a life already dedicated to helping and caring for others, particularly the most disadvantaged.
Etienne was marked by his childhood, and was very close to his mother. He grew up in a deeply Christian family with a reputation for honesty. It was in the church at Vellexon, during a catechism session, that young Etienne first felt called to the priesthood.
A text
The two quotations chosen show the love and compassion that the founders had for the poorest of the poor, but also the respect that they felt was important to show them.
Antoinette
Letter to Mrs. Tubino, a young sick woman cared for by Mother Mary of Jesus, February 1869:
« I am therefore happy, yes, very happy at this moment to place at your disposal this immense need that He has deigned to arouse in my heart to sympathize with all the and all the ills and to strive by all means to alleviate them. Thus, dear child, if, near you, I have the happiness of being able to do something, you acquire a right to my gratitude, since you provide my heart with great consolation »
Etienne
Instruction of July 19, 1894 :
« Your predilection must be for the poor and not only must you respect them but love them with a love (…) which will have no limits because of their dignity which they derive from the fact that Our Lord wanted to be one of them and the first. »
A manuscript
Antoinette
Etienne
extraits :
