Saint Claude La Colombière

Claude La Colombière was born on February 2, 1641, at Saint-Symphorien-d’Ozon, between Lyon and Vienne, the third child of Bertrand La Colombière, a notary, and Margaret Coindat. The family soon moved to Vienne. He was taught by the Jesuits of Lyon and entered the Jesuit novitiate at Avignon at seventeen. After some years teaching grammar and literature at Avignon, he studied theology at the Collège de Clermont in Paris from 1666, while serving as tutor to the children of Jean-Baptiste Colbert. He was ordained a priest in 1669 and held the chair of rhetoric at the Collège de la Trinité in Lyon from 1670 to 1673.

During his tertianship in 1674 he made a private vow to keep the rule and constitutions of the Society faithfully, and those who lived with him said that he kept it exactly. On February 2, 1675, he made his final profession, and that year he was sent as superior of the Jesuit house at Paray-le-Monial, where he also heard the confessions of the nuns of the Visitation. One of them, Sister Margaret Mary Alacoque, had told her superiors that Christ had shown her his Heart. He examined her account, judged her experiences to be graces from God and told her to write them down. Margaret Mary said that Christ had promised to send her his faithful servant and perfect friend, and she recognized him in the new superior. In June 1675 both consecrated themselves to the Sacred Heart.

In 1676 he was sent to London as preacher to Mary of Modena, Duchess of York and later queen, and he lived at St. James’s Palace. He kept his religious rule at court and went on guiding Margaret Mary by letter. In November 1678, during the panic over the Popish Plot invented by Titus Oates, a former protégé falsely denounced him, and he was held for about five weeks in the King’s Bench Prison. His title as the duchess’s preacher and the protection of Louis XIV saved his life, and in 1679 he was banished from England with his health ruined.

He spent his last two years in Lyon, as spiritual director of the young Jesuits, and at Paray-le-Monial, where he went for his health. He died at Paray on February 15, 1682, at forty-one. His writings, among them the Pious Reflections, the Meditations on the Passion and the Retreat and Spiritual Letters, were gathered in his collected works, printed at Avignon in 1832 and at Paris in 1864.

Further reading: Paray-le-Monial: A Pilgrim’s Guide to the Sacred Heart; Sacred Heart in France: Paray-le-Monial to Montmartre.

Pope Pius XI beatified him on June 16, 1929, and Saint John Paul II canonized him in Rome on May 31, 1992. His relics are venerated at Paray-le-Monial in the Chapelle La Colombière, a twentieth-century Jesuit chapel on the rue Pasteur, near the Visitation chapel where the relics of Saint Margaret Mary rest. The sanctuary of Paray-le-Monial keeps his feast each February, and in 2026 it held offices, teachings and a vigil in his honor from February 13 to 15.

He is usually shown in the black cassock of a Jesuit priest. His chief monument in France is the Chapelle La Colombière at Paray-le-Monial. Behind a plain exterior, its interior has a decoration inspired by Byzantine art, with mosaics, stained glass, sculptures and carved and painted capitals around the place where his relics are venerated. The chapel was classified as a historic monument in 2022.

• Paray-le-Monial, Chapelle La ColombièreThe Jesuit chapel on the rue Pasteur, where his relics are venerated.
• Paray-le-Monial, Chapel of the VisitationThe chapel of the apparitions on the rue de la Visitation, where he was confessor to the nuns and where the relics of Saint Margaret Mary rest.

On our ways: Paray-le-Monial.

• Via SanctorumThe Way of the Saints, nine daysDay V, Paray-le-Monial