Contemporary witnesses say she called herself the little handmaid of the Lord and St Francis asked to have her for the reform of his order. Gentle, energetic and utterly charming, she helped to rebuild the church and heal a broken age and she did it by prayer and penitence.
Her life is an invittation to joy-filled courage and her Testament is just that; an invitation to a perennial return to the Gospel that is our way of life. Colette is not one of yesterday’s answers, her Testament is a covenant for our life today, as Mother Francesca’s Commentary shows.
We have included as many of Colette's letters as we can, simply because they are not easily available - and they give a fascinating picture of her.
To Colette, her sisters were: very dear and much loved pilgrims to heaven, who cannot have the victory without a battle nor a crown without a victory. She saw all she did as a work of the Holy Spirit and signs many of her letters in the Spirit's grace. Even to those like the Benedictines of Corbie, who would rather be excommunicated by Pope Eugene and disenfranchised by King Charles VII than let her establish a community of Poor Sisters in her birthplace, she prays I humbly beg the Holy Spirit to keep you always in his holy grace and finally to bring you to everlasting glory.
Colette is a healer. She brought healing to children and adults and above all to The hurts of a Land, of a Church, that are rent and riven. She is Walled in light as Paul Claudel called her.
To the Papal legate at the Council of Basle she is his little mother and If every son who loves his mother dearly merits to receive something from her, then certainly I, who love you more than if you had born me yourself, ought to obtain this grace (of prayer and intercession) from you!
To herself she is just another of the poor: I recommend my poor soul before the Lord to your good prayers and petitions as humbly as I know how to, wishing you from my heart an increase in all the virtues necessary for salvation, and beseeching you most affectionately to live virtuously and grow continuously in the perfect love of God
Colette is the patron saint of expectant mothers and unborn children and we can all share in her prayer. The secret of her vivid life is inscribed on her seal.
The face of St Colette
Top: 15th C woodcarving, Bruges PCC - Illumination from the Vita Sanctae Colettae (Ghent Poor Clares MS 8) c1460 - 20th C oil painting on the Sister’s side of the Chassé at Poligny, facial image reconstructed from the saint’s scull - Cartoon 2010, TMD - Screen print 1981, Ghent - Silk painting, 1999 TMD