Canonization: November 25, 2001
Feast Day: January 10

Leonie Aviat was born in Sezanne, in the region of Champagne, France. She attended the Visitation School in Troyes, where Mother Marie de Sales Chappuis and Father Louis Brisson exerted a profound influence on her. Following the completion of her studies, Leonie moved back to Sezanne to stay with her parents who desired that she marry. Yet, in her heart, Leonie was not certain that marriage was her path. During this time, she remained in contact with both Mother Chappuis and Fr. Brisson and regularly returned to the Visitation Monastery at the school to make retreats.

One day Leonie took her mother’s eyeglasses to a factory to be repaired by the workers. Upon entering the factory, Leonie saw the young girls feverishly working and was deeply moved by them. She imagined herself working there with them, guiding the girls, counseling them, and assisting them not just with work but with all aspects of their lives.

Several days after this experience, Leonie returned to Troyes and met with Fr. Brisson. She confided to him her experience at the eyeglass factory and how she felt called to minister to girls and young women working in factories. Fr. Brisson, upon hearing this, felt the Holy Spirit present in this encounter. For several years both Fr. Brisson and Mother Chappuis had watched as industrialization began to flourish in France and girls from the country, lured by the promise of easy factory work, came regularly to Troyes and other cities. Once in the city, however, the girls often faced homelessness and other forms of exploitation. To remedy this, Fr. Brisson had purchased a house which could house and care for the needs of fifty young girls. He attempted to use volunteers to supervise the girls at the house; however, the work was very demanding and difficult, and the volunteers would not stay. In his private prayer, Fr. Brisson recognized that only a religious order of women would be able to provide the support and guidance that these young girls needed. Fr. Brisson confided this all to Leonie Aviat. Emboldened by the idea, Leonie and her classmate Lucie Canuet went on an eight-day retreat directed by Mother Chappuis and supported in prayer by Fr. Brisson. Following this retreat both Leonie and Lucie moved into a little house and together began to minister to the girls. The girls responded positively to both Leonie and Lucie who spent their time counseling, educating, supporting, and praying with the girls.

In 1868, following a period of religious instruction by both Mother Chappuis and Fr. Brisson, Leonie and Lucie received the habit of the Oblate Sisters of St. Francis de Sales. Leonie was given the name Sr. Frances de Sales and made her first profession of vows on October 11, 1871. In 1872, Leonie became the first superior general of the Oblate Sisters and from this time forward was known as Mother Aviat.

Under her guidance, the community increased in numbers, and the apostolate of the Oblate Sisters expanded to include the development of working girls’ homes and schools in France, Austria, Switzerland, England, and Italy as well as education and missionary work in South Africa and South America. In this ministry the Oblate Sisters strove to guide and work alongside the girls to provide them an education and also form them as apostles who would spread Christ’s love in their workplaces and in their families. In 1903 religious persecution occurred in France and the government repossessed the majority of the Oblate Sisters houses and apostolates. Mother Aviat transferred the Motherhouse to Perugia Italy where she died on January 10, 1914.

Unlike other Salesian saints, Leonie Aviat did not leave behind many writings. The teachings and instructions that are preserved were written down by the early Oblate Sisters. In reading them, one sees a woman who united herself to God in imitation of Jesus the Worker, emphasized the Salesian spiritual practice of the presence of God and Direction of Intention and who strove, above all else to remain faithful to the motto she had taken at her profession: “To forget myself entirely.”

The Oblate Sisters came to the United States in 1950 and currently staff and run Mount Aviat Academy, a private Catholic elementary school dedicated to the education of children in the Salesian tradition.