Une Minute avec Marie
Faire connaître et aimer Marie
"Do you know why, at age 92, I am still in such good health?" Maurice Mesnil, the oldest guest at a community dinner in Brix (department of Manche, France), mischievously asked in March 2022. "It's because I was born on December 8, the feast of the Immaculate Conception. All this time, the Virgin Mary has been watching over me!"
Smiling and chatty, he talked about his life. He started out as a farm hand, then worked as a driver in a cider factory, before becoming a cattle breeder. Maurice married his wife Julienne in 1953. The couple had three children, two boys and a girl, six years apart, eight grandchildren and seven great grandchildren. Maurice and Julienne ran their own farm with more than twenty dairy cows.
After the death of his wife in 2019, Maurice continued to work on his own until his retirement two years ago. "And now I can work for myself." What he means is that he can now devote his time to his passion: repairing things, inventing new tools or improving old ones.
And he is, as he says, "never sick". Indeed, the Virgin Mary has been faithfully watching over her child Maurice his whole life!