Born: Saint-Michel-en-Maurienne (Savoie), France, November 25, 1819.
Took the habit: N.-D. de l’Osier, May 9, 1849.
Vows: N.-D. de l’Osier, May 10, 1850 (No. 276).
Priestly ordination: Aix-en-Provence, September 21, 1850.
Dispensed from vows: 1853.
Jacques François Didier was born in Saint-Michel-en-Maurienne, diocese of Saint-Jean de Maurienne, France, on November 25, 1819. His parents were Dominique and Cecile Didier. He began his novitiate in Notre-Dame de l’Osier on May 9, 1849 and took vows there on May 10, 1850. He had been admitted to profession in the general council meeting of the preceding April 15. In the minutes of that meeting, the secretary general wrote: “Admission to vows of Brother Didier, who, according of the report of the novice master, has everything required to be useful and to serve the Church to advantage in the different ministries which may be entrusted to him by holy obedience. This Brother has spent some time in the Grande Chartreuse monastery as an aspirant and has acquired some habits conducive to solitariness; he is not sufficiently open and he would need to harmonize with the other Brothers in order to become more amenable to relations and the duties of charity towards others…”
Bishop de Mazenod ordained him to the priesthood in the major seminary of Aix-en-Provence on September 21, 1850 and immediately gave him an obedience for England as master of novices in Maryvale. Later, he lived in Saint-Pierre-Apôtre in Montreal in the period 1851-1853. In the minutes of the general council on July 31, 1853, the secretary general wrote: “A letter from Father Didier to Bishop de Mazenod was read. He has recently returned from Canada and, writing from the Grande Chartreuse, he says that he considers himself to be dispensed from his vows and he will now enter his diocese. This poor man has been afflicted with cerebral disarray, which has caused him to be confined to a health centre in Canada. The council has decided to regularize his situation by means of a canonical dispensation as soon as his condition improves and he is capable of making the request in due form.”
Yvon Beaudoin
and Gaston Carrière, o.m.i.
