SECULAR ORDER OF DISCALCED CARMELITES
England, Wales and Scotland

Today is the feast day of such a truly astonishing French saint with strong Carmelite connections that I can’t resist blogging about her - St Julie Billiart (1751-1816) – because her story is so extraordinary and it is worth reading at greater length than the paragraph I normally restrict myself to.  ‘ By the age of seven she had memorized the whole catechism. When she was eight, she was already gathering poor children and teaching them religion and how to read and write. Whi