From Montmartre to Tyburn

From The Catholic Herald:

The Vatican has agreed to open the Cause for the canonisation of Mother Marie Adele Garnier, the foundress of the Tyburn Nuns.

Mother Garnier, who died in Tyburn Convent, near Marble Arch, London, in 1924, has been given the title “Servant of God” after the Congregation for the Cause of Saints concluded that there were “no obstacles” to her candidacy.

She began her order at Montmartre in Paris at the end of the 19th century, but had to leave France because of the anti-clerical Law of Associations in 1901, which "suppressed nearly all of the religious orders in France and confiscated their property", according to the Encyclopedia Britannica entry on anti-clericalism.

They came first to Notting Hill then in 1903, with the help of a cash gift, purchased a house on the north side of Hyde Park, just yards from the site of the Tyburn gallows, upon which 105 Catholic martyrs perished during the Protestant Reformation.

Today Mother Garnier’s tomb has become a place of pilgrimage for people from across the globe.

Her order of contemplative Benedictine nuns – properly called the Adorers of the Sacred Heart of Jesus of Montmartre – has also spread rapidly around the world and in the last few decades has opened new convents in South America, Africa, France and New Zealand.

At the Tyburn convent, the nuns have supported the cause and memory of the Catholics martyred at Tyburn, including the replica of Tyburn Tree seen above, where pilgrims may venerate relics of the martyrs.

More about Servant of God Mother Marie Adele Garnier here. The prayer for canonization:

FATHER, all-powerful & ever-living God,

we give you glory, praise and thanks for the life and virtue

of your beloved daughter, Marie Adele Garnier.


Filled with the riches of your grace

and preferring nothing to the love

of the Heart of Jesus Christ,

she devoted her whole life

to the adoration, praise and glory
 of your Name;


she sacrificed herself by prayer and penance

for the unity & holiness of your Church;

she loved her neighbour with a charity

full of humility and compassion.

Above all, she found the SUN of her life 
in the Holy Mass,

and so was consumed with zeal
 for liturgical worship

and eucharistic adoration,
 and abandoned herself with all her heart

to your most Holy Will in all things.

In your mercy Lord, hearken to our prayer

"Glorify your Servant
Mother Marie Adele Garnier,

that your Servant
 may glorify YOU".

We ask you this through our Lord
 Jesus Christ, Your Son
who lives and reigns with You in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, world without end. AMEN.

Image Credit: John D. Smith, Cwmbran (2011); Used by permission.