Saint Emilie de Vialar (1797-1856)

St. Emilie de Vialar was born in Gaillac (south-west of France) on the 12th September 1797. She was the eldest of four children. From a very early age, this intelligent and lively girl, daughter of Baron de Vialar and Mrs. Antoinette Portal, felt an attraction to God.
Hers was a happy childhood. Her mother was her first teacher. Yet Emilie frequented also a small school in Gaillac. At the age of 13, her parents accompanied her to a boarding school in Paris. Unfortunately, her mother passed away on arrival.

Having finished her education Emilie returned to Gaillac, where she was often accompanying her father to social events of the time. Young and pretty she loved beautiful clothes and adorned herself with jewels. She was popular with boys and girls alike, and some proposed marriage to her. Emilie herself relates that at that particular period of her life she realised she had another vocation, but she was not sure what that would entail for her. Though she interested herself in everything, she found that nothing really fully satisfied her.

A “mission” was preached in a parish of Gaillac. This helped her to come to a decision : to give herself completely to God. Still, the bearing of this on her life was unclear for many years to come.
At this time Emilie became aware of the situation of poverty and injustice that reigned in her native town. Much to her father’s displeasure she began to distribute food and clothing to the poor that knocked at her door. Later with the help of other young girls, her friends of Gaillac, she would reach out to the poor, sick persons in their homes bringing them soup, warm clothes, food and medicines. When she went to Paris with the family, she was very impressed and affected by “irreligious behaviour which prevailed in that city” (letter to Françoise Pezet, 1826) and she would go pray in the church for Foreign Missions. In Gaillac, she did what she could to “work for the conversion of sinners and heretics” (Account of Graces).

St. Emilie was sustained in her quest by her spiritual director, who encouraged her to believe in her Vocation. Little by little she understood that God was inviting her to found a Congregation to honour the Mystery of the Incarnation as revealed to St. Joseph, by carrying out the different works of charity, in particular in “infidel countries.”
On the death of her grandfather Emilie inherited a fortune which enabled her to buy a house, and on Christmas night 1832, together with three companions, she founded the Congregation of the Sisters of St. Joseph of the Apparition.
This name expresses the Mission and Spirituality of the Congregation : contributing to the saving plan of God, as Joseph has done after having been warned by the angel to take Mary who was with child (Mt. 1, 20-21).

The sisters were called to Algeria, then Tunisia, and later to various countries in the Mediterranean basin there to reveal by their loving devotedness, the infinite love of God for humanity. At Emilie’s death in Marseilles on the 24th August 1856, her sisters were the first to settle in Australia.

See : Some Dates in the Life of St. Emilie.

See : St. Emilie’s Family.