Rendered in two parts.

Part I: Sr Hermine Frémont

The sun shone brightly in the morning sky as Hermine Frémont wrapped her coat more tightly around her. She could not get over how cold it was, and in June, no less! However, she was making her first trans-Atlantic voyage and should therefore expect the unexpected. She remembered her last trip a few years earlier, returning to her native Quebec City after spending the winter in Florida. This had been her doctor’s advice, for the sake of her fragile health, which he feared the harsh Quebec winters were making worse. Hermine had not noticed much of an improvement in her health on that trip. She would not have considered it worthwhile, had she not had a life-changing experience during the return trip.

Hermine smiled as she recalled her first visit to the Carmelite monastery in Baltimore. Since completing her schooling, she had lived a prayerful, retiring life at home with her beloved mother, having resolved to consecrate herself entirely to Jesus and to her family. At the time of that trip, she was feeling the stirrings of a possible religious vocation, but none of the communities she knew seemed to be the right fit. All of that changed when she had her first encounter with the Carmelites. By the time she had left Baltimore to return home, she had resolved to become a Carmelite. She remembered writing from New York, ‘How happy I am to have seen the Carmelites! I told mamma that their austere monastery was what I loved most in Baltimore, and that I would not exchange the happiness I experienced in that city for anything in this world.’² She had realized that she had a vocation to Carmel, a vocation that her spiritual director, Fr Antoine Braun, SJ, had confirmed.

An obstacle then arose: there was no Carmelite monastery in Canada for her to enter. Her director agreed to work with her towards getting one founded. Since the Baltimore Carmel was English-speaking, they thought it best to write to one in France. Fr Braun had suggested the one in Reims, where he had once conducted a retreat. The nuns in Reims had replied that they were in no position to make a new foundation at the time due to insufficient numbers. However, they were convinced of Hermine’s vocation, and had accepted her as a postulant, with the hopes that she would one day be able to return to Quebec to make the desired foundation. In view of this vocation to bring the spirit of St Teresa to a new land, the nuns in Reims had even given her the name Teresa of Jesus.

This is how we find 21-year-old Hermine on the morning of June 9, 1873, sitting on the deck of the Scandinavian, making her journey to Reims to follow the call of her beloved Bridegroom. She had come into the world on the eve of His Nativity, on December 24, 1851, and she was determined to follow Him wherever He led her. It was only His call that could have given her the courage to leave behind her beloved widowed mother, Marie-Cécile Frémont, and the rest of her family. It was not that her love for them had died when she received her call to Carmel; rather, it had become supernatural, and therefore stronger. Hermine was entering Carmel to become another Teresa of Jesus, seeking only Jesus Christ, His Cross and His Blessed Mother. Hermine was convinced that she could do far more for her family by entering Carmel than by staying in Quebec. By making this supreme sacrifice, she would continually be able to call down heavenly blessings upon them from her beloved Bridegroom. These would be infinitely more valuable than anything her physical closeness to them would have brought. Although Hermine’s heart was crushed upon leaving her beloved mother, who was both a natural and a spiritual mother to her, she would not have wanted to return to her mother’s home. Her only desire was to do the will of God, which was to be a faithful spouse of Jesus Christ in Carmel. What an honour! She had already, in preparation, begun wearing a gold ring engraved with her initials and those of Jesus Christ as a sign of her betrothal. Now this betrothal would be fulfilled in the Carmel of Reims.

Hermine’s thoughts were suddenly interrupted by a commotion on the deck: land had just been sighted! Everyone was filled with excitement. The long days at sea were nearing their end. Hermine also joyfully gazed at the horizon as the rocks and coastline of Ireland began to appear. Soon she would be in Liverpool. An overnight stay in London, then she would be going across the Channel to France; then to the Carmel of Reims, where she had resolved to give herself totally to Christ. Beyond this horizon lay another one: that of the Canadian foundation. Then there would be the final horizon: her meeting with her beloved Bridegroom when her earthly journey was complete, to live with Him forever. It was on this horizon that Hermine always set her sights, for it was, in the end, the most important one, and it allowed her to make each sacrifice with serenity and joy. 

As Hermine prepared herself for this next step of her earthly journey, could she have suspected at that moment just how soon that final horizon would arrive for her? After years of anticipation and preparation, events finally began to unfold very quickly for Hermine. Upon entering Carmel, she endeared herself to all the nuns in Reims with her charity and generosity. She had an intuitive grasp of the Carmelite spirit and way of life that made her community marvel, and her usual reply to hearing the explanation of a particular custom was, “Oh, how beautiful it is!” So impressed were the nuns that they gave her the Carmelite habit on October 13, 1873, barely four months after her entrance. They expected her to make profession on October 15 of the following year, the feast of her patroness, St Teresa of Jesus. Alas, it was not to be! Sr Teresa had suffered from poor health for a long time, but her strong and generous spirit had sustained her amid the penitential life of Carmel. Her health had actually seemed to improve in this environment. Then, suddenly, in mid-December, Sr Teresa became seriously ill. She made her profession on her deathbed and passed away peacefully on December 22, just two days shy of her 22nd birthday, and barely six months after beginning her Carmelite journey. As she lay dying, she asked the sisters gathered around her to sing a hymn they had sung on other occasions, one that expressed the longing to enter Heaven, and while they were singing it, she crossed over the heavenly threshold.

The Canadian foundation would now require other brave souls who were up to the challenge of making this same trans-Atlantic journey to bring the spirit of Carmel back to Hermine’s homeland. Little could the brave nun chosen to lead the group of foundresses have dreamed that she would be given this honour.

Part II: Mother Marie-Séraphine

Mother Séraphine of the Divine Heart of Jesus gazed thoughtfully into the distance, marvelling at the icebergs floating on the horizon. One of her companions exclaimed, “Oh, how cold it must be in the country these icebergs come from!” Monsieur Thibault, who had come to accompany Mother Séraphine and her five companions on their trans-Atlantic boat trip, laughed aloud at this remark. ‘Eh, Sister!’ he replied. ‘They come from my country, which will soon be yours.’³[2]

Yes, Canada was known for its frigid weather, Mother Séraphine mused; but still, that land had been capable of producing generous souls burning with the fire of charity, souls like Hermine Frémont. Mother Séraphine had had the privilege of being Hermine’s Novice Mistress during the latter’s short stay in the Carmel of Reims. It was Mother Séraphine who had suggested giving the little Canadian postulant the name Sr Teresa of Jesus.

How quickly things had happened since Hermine’s death.  Though Mother Séraphine had struggled for the past two years over the thought of leaving her homeland, here she was on the way to Canada.  Having entered Carmel at 18, she had soon become Mistress of Novices, then Prioress for several terms.  Now she was 58 years old and had thought she could, like a good soldier, ‘retire’ to a quiet and peaceful life, free of the obligations of governing. Instead, she found herself being asked to head the group of foundresses of the Carmel of Montreal, which would be the first Canadian Carmel.

Mother Séraphine remembered when Fr Braun wrote and asked her to undertake this mission. Since, during the winter of 1870, she had suffered severe frostbite to her feet, she had written in reply: ‘I have such difficulty in walking that I have to measure my steps.  It has reached the point that, with the best will in the world, I am unable to walk around the garden. How do you think that with such poor health I am able to go to America?  It is impossible….’  Fr Braun had replied, ‘In order to come to Canada, Reverend Mother, you have no need of legs.  The railway will take you to the port and the steam ship will carry you to Montreal.’⁴

So here she was, in the spring of 1875, on board a trans-Atlantic steamer, heading to a new and unknown land to bring to it the spirit of St Teresa of Jesus. Her horizons had been unexpectedly expanded. The parting from her beloved community had been difficult, although she was sustained by the knowledge that they would one day all be reunited in Heaven. Like Hermine, she kept her eyes on the heavenly horizon, and on the salvation of souls. All else was secondary.

Several weeks before the departure Mother Séraphine had said to the two youngest sisters who would be accompanying her, ‘You, dear children, God is spoiling you… You are carried on the wings of grace; for you it seems that going on the Foundation is like going to a Wedding… But, it is otherwise for me… for me, the Foundation, it is the Garden of Olives…. it is Calvary… the boredom, the distaste, the abandonment, it crushes my soul.  I can say with my good Master… “My soul is sorrowful unto death… My Father, let this chalice pass from me”… I am resigned because I believe that this is the will of God… The Foundation appears to me as a Cross whose weight crushes me. But Fiat because it is Jesus who places it upon me.’⁵

During the trip to board the steamer, Mother Séraphine’s group had passed through England, where they received a truly cordial reception from the Religious of the Sacred Heart in London and the Good Shepherd Sisters in Liverpool. Staying with them had been a very edifying experience. Not everything was that consoling for the foundresses, however. The sea voyage was a very difficult one, with terrible seasickness and storms. One storm had been so bad that the captain declared afterwards that he had never experienced such a storm in the 35 years he had been at sea, and he was amazed that the ship had survived at all. Then, suddenly, on the morning of May 1, all became clear and calm. It was the first day of the month of Mary. This foundation had been entrusted to her Immaculate Heart right from the beginning, and before leaving Reims, Mother Séraphine had lit a candle before the altar of the Immaculate Heart, asking that it be kept burning until news came of their safe arrival in Canada. Mother Séraphine saw this as a sign that Our Lady really wanted this foundation, and that she would see it through. Even though more difficulties, like those icebergs, surely loomed on the horizon, everything would work out in the end, for the greater honour and glory of God.

Mother Séraphine was correct about the difficulties.  There were plenty of them in the years ahead.  She persevered and, with God’s help, planted the Carmelite Order on Canadian soil. Not long before she died she said to one of the sisters, ‘Yesterday I said to little Jesus: ‘Little Jesus, I give you my heart as a gift and what will you give me?’  He responded to me: ‘Suffering’… nothing but this word… but very clear… I will not recover…’⁶

Mother Séraphine had said at the beginning of the Foundation, ‘Everything for you alone, my God.  Everything for your glory, and nothing, nothing… for me.’⁷  She lived this to the end of her life. On January 9, 1888, after much suffering, she died in the Carmel she had founded.

Words of counsel which she had once given to one of her daughters regarding thanksgiving after Holy Communion provide a beautiful insight into the love of Jesus which had sustained her throughout her life: ‘My child, if at the moment when the Sacred Host touches your lips, you say only this word: “My God!” that is sufficient.  I have done this for many years and I have not yet arrived at the faith, the love, the adoration that I would wish.  Say “My God!” and stay there, lose yourself in Jesus…’⁸

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1. The sisters in the Carmel of St Joseph, St Agatha, Ontario, Canada, are intrigued by the little-known figure of Hermine.  Almost all that we know about her is found in the book Une Fleur du Carmel written by her spiritual director, Fr Antoine Braun, SJ (1875).  More details about her family appear in the book published by the Carmel of Montreal (1944) Mère Séraphine du Divin Coeur de Jésus.  In 1990 the Carmel of Baltimore republished Fr Charles Currier’s history of the Discalced Carmelite Nuns, Carmel in America 1790-1890.  In Chapter 34, he gives a brief account of the founding of the Carmel of Montreal, drawing his information from Fr Braun’s book. A photocopy of the original book Une Fleur du Carmel can be found online. Our thanks to the Carmel of Montreal for additional material on Mother Séraphine and for supplying the photos. ↩︎
2. Charles Warren Currier, Carmel in America: (1790 -1890) A Centennial History of the Discalced Carmelites. (Illinois: Carmelite Press, 1989), p. 336. ↩︎
3. Mère Séraphine, p. 186 ↩︎
4. Ibid., p. 135. ↩︎
5. Circular Letter, p. 3 (Carmel of Montreal Archives). ↩︎
6. Notes on Mother Séraphine, Carmel of Montreal Archives. ↩︎
7. Mère Séraphine, p. 168. ↩︎
8. Notes on Mother Séraphine, Carmel of Montreal Archives. ↩︎