Blessed Francis Coll
![[Blessed Francis Coll]](saintf61.jpg "41kb jpg detail of an Italian holy card of Blessed Francis Coll; swiped off the Kirken i Norge web site; please do not write to ask about the image")
- Also known as
- Frans Coll Guitart
- Memorial
- 19 May
- Profile
- One of ten children.
His father Peter died when Francis was only four.
Confirmed in 1818 at age six.
Entered the seminary at Vichy, France in 1822 at age ten.
Student with Saint Anthony Mary Claret.
Even as a kid he taught grammar and catechism to local children.
Joined the Dominicans at Vichy in 1830 at age eighteen.
When monastic orders were suppressed by the government, Francis continued to study covertly.
Ordained on 28 March 1836 at Vichy.
Parish priest of Arles, France.
Reassigned to Moya in 1839, an area devastated by war, awash with starving refugees.
He established charitable organizations to feed and house them, and he worked with the poor and displaced for ten years.
Helped Saint Anthony Claret found the Apostolic Fraternity in 1846.
Director of the tertiaries in Vichy.
In 1850 he re-opened the suppressed Dominican monastery, and began a program of preaching throughout the Catalan region.
Worked with cholera victims during the epidemic that struck in 1854.
Founded the congregation La Annunciata in 1856, a teaching branch of tertiaries; by his death the order had grown to fifty houses, and today there are over 140 in Europe and America.
Struck blind during a homily given at Sallent on 2 December 1869; his health was never the same, but he refused to retire.
When the Dominicans were allowed to officially return to the region in 1872, they found that Francis has somehow maintained the primary structures, phsyical and administrative, and instead of starting all over, they reclaimed what was theirs, and took up their work where they had left off.
- Born
- 18 May 1812 in Grombeny, Catalan Pyrenees, Spain
- Died
- 2 April 1875 of natural causes;
relics enshrined in the La Annunciata motherhouse
- Beatified
- 29 April 1979 by Pope John Paul II
- Canonized
- pending
- Prayers
- God of all truth, you chose Blessed Francis to make known the name of your Son and to instruct Christian people in holiness.
By the help of his prayers may the true faith be continually sustained and grow through the ministry of preaching.
We ask this through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.
- General Calendar of the Order of Preachers
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