1900 - Anne-Francoise Moreau

July 9, 1900

Taiyuan, Shanxi

Anne-Francoise Moreau. [CRBC]

The French martyr Anne-Francoise Moreau was born in the village of La Faye on April 9, 1866. Growing up in one of the wealthiest farming families in the area, Anne-Francoise learned many good attributes from her father, who was a generous man and always willing to help those less fortunate than himself. Anne-Francoise was a quiet girl. She preferred to spend time with her mother rather than playing with other children. When she was a teenager her father suddenly died. This tragedy threatened to bring financial disaster on the Moreau household, but Anne-Francoise took the responsibility of selling farm produce at the market to earn income.

As she blossomed into womanhood, Anne-Francoise Moreau felt that God had a great plan for her life. She told her mother, “I want to go to China and to do something great and finally to give my life for the poor Chinese…. That is my dream!”[1]

Her mother, still struggling to overcome the loss of her husband, was unwilling to let her daughter go to the other side of the world. She strongly opposed Anne-Francoise and arranged a succession of eligible young men to meet her. With a heavy heart Anne-Francoise decided she needed to put the call of God above the desires of her mother. She secretly left home, entering the novitiate in 1890. For the first few months all seemed happy and peaceful for the young Christian, until the consequences of her action struck her. Darkness

“clouded her soul, plunging her into doubts of all kinds. She who had firmly broken her family bonds now began to doubt the sanity of her vocation and its apostolate. She lost interest in everything around her; the simplest little job became unbearable. Hope for the future abandoned her. She hardly believed in the real presence of Jesus…. The only clear issue was ‘to go home.’”[2]

Over the following years Moreau reconciled with her mother and dealt with all the issues that had plagued her. The peace of God returned, and she learned to live a life of love and abandonment to his will. She went to Taiyuan in 1898, where she applied herself wholeheartedly to the work of the orphanage as well as in the wider community. When the Boxers launched their mayhem in the summer of 1900, the great plan that God had for Anne-Francoise Moreau became clear. It was to die as a martyr for Jesus Christ.