My eyes, I have filled with Jesus upon Whom I have fixed them at the Elevation of the Host at Holy Mass and I do not wish to replace Him with any other image — Saint Colette

Colette of Corbie was a French abbess and the foundress of the Colettine Poor Clares, a reform branch of the Order of Saint Clare, better known as the Poor Clares. Due to a number of miraculous events claimed during her life, she is venerated as a patron saint of women seeking to conceive, expectant mothers, and sick children.

She was born Nicole Boellet in the village of Corbie, in the Picardy region of France, on 13 January 1381 to Robert Boellet, a poor carpenter and his wife, Marguerite Moyon. Her biographers say that her parents had grown old without having children, before praying to Saint Nicholas for help in having a child. Their prayers were answered when, at the age of 60, Marguerite gave birth to a daughter. Out of gratitude, they named the baby after the saint to whom they credited the miracle of her birth. She was affectionately called Nicolette by her parents, which soon came to be shorted to Colette, by which name she is known.

After her parents died in 1399, Colette joined the Beguines but found their manner of life unchallenging. Joining a Benedictine order as a lay sister, most likely to avoid an arranged marriage, she again became dissatisfied. In September 1402, Colette received the habit of the Third Order of St. Francis and became a hermit under the direction of the Abbot of Corbie, living near the abbey church. After four years of following this ascetic way of life, through several dreams and visions, she came to believe that she was being called to reform the Franciscan Second Order and to return it to its original Franciscan ideals of absolute poverty and austerity.

In October 1406, she turned to the Antipope Benedict XIII of Avignon who was recognized in France as the rightful pope. Benedict received her in Nice, in southern France, and allowed her to transfer to the Order of Poor Clares. Additionally, he empowered her through several papal bulls, issued between 1406 and 1412, to found new monasteries and to complete the reform of the Order.

With the approval of the Countess of Geneva and the aid of the Franciscan itinerant preacher, Henry de Beaume (her confessor and spiritual director), Colette began her work at Beaune, in the Diocese of Geneva. She remained there only a short time. In 1410, she opened her first monastery at Besançon, in an almost-abandoned house of Urbanist Poor Clares. From there, her reform spread to Auxonne, Poligny, Ghent, Heidelberg, Amiens, Pont-à-Mousson in Lorraine, and to other communities of Poor Clares. During her lifetime, 18 monasteries of her reform were founded. For the monasteries which followed her reform, she prescribed extreme poverty, going barefoot, and the observance of perpetual fasting and abstinence.

In addition to the strict rules of the Poor Clares, the Colettines follow their special Constitutions, approved in 1434 by the Minister General of the friars, William of Casale, and approved in 1448 by Pope Nicholas V, again in 1458 by Pope Pius II, and in 1482 by Pope Sixtus IV.

Colette died at Ghent in March 1447 and was beatified 23 January 1740 by Pope Clement XII. She was canonized on 24 May 1807 by Pope Pius VII. Colette is invoked by childless couples desiring to become parents and is also the patroness of expectant mothers and sick infants.

Other Saints of the Day
1. Saint Baldred
2. Saint Balther
3. Saint Conon
4. Saint Fridolin
5. Saint Ollegarius

-catholic.org