Catherine Jarrige was born on 4 October 1754 to poor peasants Pierre Jarrige and Maria Célarier in Doumis. She was the last of seven children; one sibling was her sister Toinette. Her mother died in 1767.^[1][2] As a girl, Jarrige liked to pull jokes on her friends, but apologized to them each time.

Jarrige worked in the fields with her parents and siblings. In 1763 she was sent to work as a servant of a neighbor. There it was said that she lived a pleasant and even mischievous life. It was at this same time in 1763 that she made her First Communion which she cherished as a crucial life event. In 1774 she went to Mauriac with her sister Toinette to work as a lacemaker.^[1] Jarrige also imitated her name patron, Catherine of Siena, and became a professed member of the Third Order of Saint Dominic in 1776. Jarrige liked to dance Bourrée, but she renounced it.^[2] She performed the dance at her sister's wedding, but pledged the next morning to never do it again - and she never did.

Jarrige spent all her life providing for the spiritual and material needs of the poor, and she went about requisitioning alms for them and inspiring the most reticent to awaken their conscience. She was devoted to the most humble and poorest people and provided them with food, clothing, and spiritual comfort.

In 1791, Jarrige was concerned by the French Revolution, which heralded in a period of anti-religious sentiment and a surge in nationalistic fervor. Jarrige helped the priests who refused to swear an oath of allegiance to the new regime. She hid them so that the priests could celebrate Mass and she assisted them in their work, risking her life multiple times. Jarrige also procured vestments for them in secret as well as wine and wafers to celebrate Mass. She managed to save all the priests she helped, save for one: François Filiol.^[1][2] Jarrige accompanied the priest to the gallows for comfort in 1793. After his execution, she took some of his blood and smeared it on the face of a blind child who was cured. The executioner saw this and began to lose composure, exclaiming, "I'm lost. I'm lost. I've killed a saint!". Jarrige was also arrested several times in 1794, but authorities released her each time, fearing riots since she was a popular figure.

One amusing tale says she disguised a priest as a peasant to smuggle him out of the area, dousing him with wine to create the illusion that he was drunk. She also asked him to act as if he were intoxicated and to let her be the one to do the talking if a soldier neared them. A soldier did approach the pair, but Jarrige deviated from her plan and began to berate the priest as if he were her husband. The soldier came up to them and said to the disguised priest, "Citizen if I had a wife like that I'd drown her in the nearest river" and the priest responded, "Citizen so would I!"^[2]

Jarrige died in 1836. Her spiritual writings were approved by theologians on 12 January 1921, and her cause was formally opened by Pope Pius XI on 12 June 1929, granting her the title of Servant of God.^[3] The confirmation of her life of heroic virtue on 16 January 1953 allowed for Pope Pius XII to title her as venerable. Pope John Paul II beatified Jarrige in Saint Peter's Square on 24 November 1996 after he confirmed a miracle attributed to her. The postulator for this cause is the Dominican priest Vito Tomás Gómez García.

• Bienheureuse Catherine Jarrige : une amie pour marcher vers le Christ, Catinon Menette 1754-1836 - Philippe Dupuy - Éditions du Signe - 1997
• Osservatore Romano : 1996 n.45 p. 7 / n.48 p. 2-3 / n.49 p. 9-10
• Documentation Catholique : 1997 n.1 p. 1-2

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