United States Catholic Catechism for Adults

34 THE TENTH

COMMANDMENT: EMBRACE POVERTY OF SPIRIT

YOU SHALL NOT COVET YOUR NEIGHBOR’S GOODS —CCC, NOS. 2534-2557

I WANT TO LIVE AND DIE FOR GOD

Henriette Delille was born in 1813 in New Orleans.The daughter of a Catholic mother of African origin and a prosperous white father, she was a free, beautiful, and educated woman. She was raised a Catholic. As a child of mixed blood, she was known as a qua droon . White in appearance, she had the possibility of climbing the social ladder and of marrying a rich man. Quadroon balls were often held to facilitate such arrangements. At age eleven, she met Sr. St. Martha Fontier,

whose Christian faith and charitable devotion to African slave families greatly impressed her. Sr. St. Martha introduced her to the ideal of love as expressed in the vow of virginity. By the time Henriette was fourteen, she was teaching religion to the slaves on the nearby plantations. She regularly visited and helped the sick and elderly among the freed blacks and slaves. Since it was against the law to educate slaves, such as teaching them to read, Henriette acted out stories from Scripture and Church history to teach them about salva tion through Jesus Christ. After her mother’s death in 1836, Henriette sold all her property and began to fulfill her dream of founding a religious community. Eventually her dream came true. With the help of a priest friend, Fr. Etienne Rousselon,