Born on October 24th, 1904 in Mussidan, Dordogne, Anne-Marie Madeleine Delbrêl was not particularly close to the faith during her youth, being distracted by the secular and positivist thinking of the time. Her conversion began at the age of 20, after an atheistic adolescence, and was completed by the age of 29, when she made a radical choice to live a Christian life. Anne-Marie Madeleine understood that God loves today’s world, which is neither better nor worse than the ancient world: Jesus continues to give his life to save it.
At 29 years of age, after studying to become a social worker, she moved in to a shack with some of her companions in a dead end alley of the Parisian working-class suburbs of Ivry-sur-Seine. Anne-Marie Madeleine chose this profession because she wanted to live side by side with men and women, sharing every moment of the day together. She was a poet and mystic, a woman of prayer and action, anxious to offer a witness of Christian life to a secularized society and to the Church, in dialogue with atheism and misery in all of its forms.
Anne-Marie Madeleine did not spare any difficulty in the midst of an unbelieving and poor populace, for she was convinced that it was necessary to work at forming a multitude of women and men rich in gentleness and humility. For her, the only way to proclaim the Gospel was by living the sweetness and humility of Christ. This is how her mission developed in the city of Ivry, where she could speak about Christ only from a humility capable of welcoming the poor.
In the industrial outskirts of Ivry, Marxism was the reason for her confrontation with atheism. "Missionary without a boat," she proclaimed the Gospel as the Good News that makes life truly happy. "Anne-Marie Madeleine Delbrêl dedicated her life to the fight against the injustices suffered by men and to living the Gospel freely and publicly in the midst of the world," wrote Father Jacques Loew, a friend of St. Paul VI, who called him to preach the Lenten Spiritual Exercises in 1970.
Contemplative and active at the same time, a woman of profound complexity and a spiritual little sister of Blessed Charles de Foucauld and Saint Therese of Lisieux, Anne-Marie Madeleine was taken into consideration in the preparatory phases of the Second Vatican Ecumenical Council for the witness of her life and her ideas on mission. Her response to the request of Monsignor Sartre, Archbishop Emeritus of Tananarive, Madagascar, titled "Atheism and Evangelization," on mission in a Marxist environment, which she made on behalf of the Commission for Missions established by the Congregation of Propaganda Fide, deserves to be remembered.
Anne-Marie Madeleine Delbrêl made numerous trips in the name of the Gospel, including voyages to Warsaw, Rome, Abidjan and Edinburgh. In Abidjan, for example, she met groups of young Africans and many people working in the slums. She was greeted by Archbishop Monsignor Bernard Yago, later to become the first cardinal from the Ivory Coast, who accompanied her around the city with his car in order to allow her to understand some facets of his episcopal apostolate.
On October 13th, 1964, Anne-Marie Madeleine was found dead between her bed and her desk, two days after the 31st anniversary of her arrival in Ivry. Speaking of Madeleine, St. John Paul II declared in 2004: "She played a part in the missionary adventure of the Church in 20th century France, particularly in the founding of the Mission of France and its seminary in Lisieux." In a decree published in January 2018, Pope Francis recognized the heroic virtues of Madeleine Delbrêl.