Julia Frances Catherine Postel was born in a small French town near Cherbourg. After studying in a Benedictine convent, she returned home to teach school, though privately she dedicated herself to God’s service. Her calling became clear with the onset of the Revolution, when her parish priest went underground. Postel put herself at his service, setting up a secret chapel in her home, where clandestine services could be conducted. She herself undertook religious duties, such as carrying consecrated Hosts to administer to the dying. Thus, as Pope Pius X later commented, she served as a veritable “maiden priest.”  

As the persecution receded, Postel devoted herself to repairing the local church, offering religious instruction, organizing prayer guilds, and performing works of mercy. In 1807 she determined that what she really wanted to do was to teach children, and for this she should organize a religious congregation.  

With support from the bishop of Cherbourg, she and three others took vows as the Sisters of the Christian Schools of Mercy, and she became Mother Mary-Magdalen. After the community struggled for some years in dire poverty, the bishop urged them to disband. But Mother Mary-Magdalen persisted, and eventually their fortunes turned.  

She died on July 16, 1846, at the age of eighty-nine. She was canonized in 1925.  

“I want to teach the young and to inspire them with the love of God and liking for work. I want to help the poor and relieve them of some of their misery. These are the things I want to do.” —St. Mary-Magdalen Postel