Anne de Guigne
(1911-1922)
French girl, born in Annecy-le-Vieux in 1911 and died in Cannes, in the smell of holiness in 1922. She was declared venerable in 1990 by Saint John Paul II.
In 1915, one year after the start of the First World War, while the fighting was stuck in the trenches, every family in France knew that the visit of a civil servant or a member of the clergy heralded a death in the countryside. of battle. For this reason, when on July 29, 1915, Madame de Guigné saw the priest of Annecy-le-Vieux, Don Métral, coming to knock on the door of her house, she understood that her husband, already wounded three times, I would never go back.
“Anne, if you want to comfort me, you have to be good,” she told her four-year-old daughter, the eldest of her four children. From that moment on, the girl, often disobedient, arrogant and jealous, will carry out a continuous and staunch fight to be good. She will be victorious in the fight to achieve her inner transformation thanks to her will but, above all, – according to her own words – by the prayer and sacrifices that she imposes on herself. She is seen to blush and clench her little fists to control her temper in the face of the annoyances encountered: then little by little the crises faded and everyone around her came to think that everything is agreeable to her. Her way to God is her love for her mother that she wants to console.
The beacons on her path are Anne’s thoughts that reflect the intensity of her spiritual life, and the numerous testimonies from her environment recounting the continuous efforts she made to progress in her conversion. For Anne de Guigné, the beacon that illuminates her path of conversion is her first communion, which she desired with all her being and all her soul, and which she prepared with joy. When the time came, and because her young age required a dispensation, the bishop subjected her to an exam that she passed with extreme ease. “My wish is that we all have the same level of knowledge of religion as this girl,” said the examiner.
The course of his short life expresses the peace of a great intimate happiness, nourished by his love for God that extends, as he advances in age, to an ever wider circle of people: his parents, his family, his environment, the sick, the poor, the unbelievers.
She lives, prays, suffers for others. She suffered from rheumatism at a very young age, she knew what her suffering was and she made it an offering: “Jesus, I offer it to you”; or: “Oh no, I don’t suffer, I learn to suffer.” But in December 1921 she suffered a brain disease, probably meningitis, which forced her to stay in bed. She repeated incessantly: “My God, I want everything that You want”, systematically adding to the prayers that they made for her cure: “… and heal the other sick people too”.
Anne de Guigné died at dawn on January 14, 1922, after a last exchange with the nun who accompanied her: «Sister, can I go with the angels? – Yes, my pretty girl – Thank you, sister, oh thank you!» This girl is a saint, according to the general opinion. Testimonies arrive, articles are published, and in 1932 the Bishop of Annecy opens the process of her beatification. But the Church had never had to judge the holiness of a girl who was not a martyr. The investigations carried out in Rome on the heroicity of the virtues of childhood were positively concluded in 1981 and on March 3, 1990 Pope Saint John Paul II signed the decree recognizing the heroic virtues of Anne de Guigné and proclaiming her “Venerable”.
For more information, see http://www.annedeguigne.fr/es/
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