Blessed Marie-Thérèse Haze |
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Religious | |
Born |
Liége, Prince-bishopric of Liège, Holy Roman Empire |
17 February 1782
Died | 7 January 1876 Liége, Belgium |
(aged 93)
Venerated in | Roman Catholic Church |
Beatified | 21 April 1991, Saint Peter's Square, Vatican City by Pope John Paul II |
Feast | 7 January |
Patronage | Daughters of the Cross |
Blessed Jeanne Haze (27 February 1782 – 7 January 1876) - in religious Marie-Thérèse of the Sacred Heart of Jesus - was a Belgian Roman Catholic professed religious and the foundress of the Daughters of the Cross. Haze decided to respond to the lack of education in her homeland in the chaos resulting from the French Revolution and made that the focus of her religious apostolate; she served as her order's Superior General from its founding until her death.
Her beatification cause opened in 1911 under Pope Pius X while Pope Pius XII later titled her as Venerable in 1941; Pope John Paul II beatified her in 1991.
Jeanne Haze was born in Liége in 1782 as one of seven children. Her father served as the aide to the Prince-bishop who ruled the area. Once the French forces occupied the Low Countries in 1794 her father decided to move himself and his relations to the German Empire for safe haven where he would die.
In her childhood she developed and cultivated a strong devotion to the Passion of Christ. At age four she could read and write. Once peace had been established their return to Belgium was assured but their experiences had left Haze and her sister Ferdinande with a strong empathetic spirit to the sufferings of the neediest people. Their mother died in 1820 and the two sisters felt called to enter a religious order though the anti-monastic laws then in effect under the United Kingdom of the Netherlands prevented that from occurring. Instead the sisters decided to follow a religious form of life in their own home and opened a small school in 1824 to support themselves.