Blessed Victoire Rasoamanarivo

Blessed Victoire Rasoamanarivo was a Malagasy laywoman from the circle of the royal court in Antananarivo, a wife and later a widow. When the missionaries were expelled from Madagascar in 1883, for three years she sustained the life of the Catholics there and defended the Church before the authorities. The Church remembers her on August 21.

She was born in 1848 in Antananarivo, into one of the most powerful families on the island, and was raised in the traditional beliefs of her ancestors. In 1861 French Jesuits arrived in the capital, and the Sisters of Saint Joseph of Cluny opened the first Catholic school for girls, which she began to attend. On November 1, 1863, at the age of fifteen, she was baptized and took the name Victoire. Her family tried to turn her away from Catholicism, sent her to a Protestant school and threatened to disinherit her, but she remained faithful.

In 1864 her family married her to a cousin, a high-ranking army officer, the son of her uncle Rainilaiarivony, prime minister of the kingdom. Her husband drank, was often violent and led a dissolute life. Those close to her urged her to divorce him, but she refused, convinced that a marriage contracted before God is indissoluble. For more than twenty years she prayed for his conversion. They had no children. When he was dying in 1888, he asked her forgiveness and received baptism, which she administered to him herself.

She combined her duties as a lady of the court with fervent prayer. Every day at dawn she went to Mass. She visited the poor, the sick and prisoners and shared with them what she had. She belonged to the association of the Children of Mary.

In 1883, during the war with France, the authorities expelled the French missionaries, and Catholics were accused of treason. Before leaving, the priests entrusted Victoire with the care of the Church. She supported and protected the Catholic Union, an association of lay people that kept the life of the community going in the absence of priests. At court she defended the Church before officials, and when the churches were closed, she had them reopened. Together with Brother Rafiringa of the Brothers of the Christian Schools, she made sure that the faithful in the capital and the surrounding villages gathered for common prayer and that catechumens continued to prepare for baptism.

After the missionaries returned in 1886, she went back to her humble place in the parish and devoted herself to works of charity, especially for lepers and prisoners. From 1890 her health declined. She died in Antananarivo on August 21, 1894, at the age of forty-six. Her tomb is in a chapel in front of the cathedral of Andohalo.

John Paul II beatified her on April 30, 1989, in Antananarivo, during his journey to Madagascar. She was the first blessed from that country. The Pope held her up as a model of fidelity to the sacrament of marriage and of the commitment of lay people to the life of the Church. On September 7, 2019, Pope Francis prayed at her tomb.