In 1381 a child was born in France who was destined to fulfill a great mission. This was Colette Boillet. As she grew up, she was known for being devout, candid, and beautiful. After the death of her parents when she was only 18, she gave all her possessions to the poor, and attempted to become a religious. Her desire was to follow the original rule of St. Clare, but she failed to find it being lived out faithfully.
Eventually she became an anchoress and lived in a small hermitage that had been built next to a church, but God had other plans. After only four years, she came to understand that God was asking her to be His instrument for the reform of the Poor Clare Order in France, Belgium and even Germany. With the permission of the pope, she left her small hermitage and dedicated the last 41 years of her life carrying out this difficult task. She not only reformed existing monasteries, but also founded many new ones. She died in Ghent, Belgium on March 6, 1447. Today her feast is celebrated by Poor Clares Colettines in the United States on February 7, while in Europe, her feast is still observed on March 6.
Although St. Francis and St. Clare are the beloved founders of the Poor Clares, the memory of St. Colette is also cherished with love by her daughters. It was she who brough new life to the order and made it possible to recapture the spirit of St. Clare’s ideals. Today there are 12 monasteries of her reform in the United States who affectionately refer to St. Colette as their “second mother.”