From his childhood, he was devoted to prayer before the Blessed
Sacrament, and, when from his twelfth year he was sent as a day pupil
to the Jesuit college at Rennes, he never failed to visit the church
before and after class. He joined a society of young men who during
holidays ministered to the poor and to the incurables in the hospitals,
and read for them edifying books during their meals. At the age of
nineteen, he went on foot to Paris to follow the course in theology,
gave away on the journey all his money to the poor, exchanged
clothing with them, and made a vow to subsist thenceforth only on
alms. He was ordained priest at the age of twenty-seven, and for some
time fulfilled the duties of chaplain in a hospital. In 1705, when he
was thirty-two, he found his true vocation, and thereafter devoted
himself to preaching to the people. During seventeen years he
preached the Gospel in countless towns and villages. As an orator he
was highly gifted, his language being simple but replete with fire and
divine love. His whole life was conspicuous for virtues difficult for
modern degeneracy to comprehend: constant prayer, love of the poor,
poverty carried to an unheard-of degree, joy in humiliations and
persecutions.
A year before his death, Father de Montfort founded two
congregations – the Sisters of Wisdom, who were to devote
themselves to hospital work and the instruction of poor girls, and the
Company of Mary, composed of missionaries. He had long cherished
these projects but circumstances had hindered their execution, and,
humanly speaking, the work appeared to have failed at his death,
since these congregations numbered respectively only four sisters and
two priests with a few brothers. But the blessed founder, who had on
several occasions shown himself possessed of the gift of prophecy,
knew that the tree would grow. At the beginning of the twentieth
century the Sisters of Wisdom numbered five thousand, and were
spread throughout every country; they possessed forty-four houses,
and gave instruction to 60,000 children.
He was canonized by Pope Pius XII in 1947. NewAdvent.org