The Sisters of the Company of Mary, Our Lady are the members of a
Roman Catholic religious order
A religious order is a lineage of communities and organizations of people who live in some way set apart from society in accordance with their specific religious devotion, usually characterized by the principles of its founder's religious practi ...
founded by
Jeanne de Lestonnac (1556-1640) in France in 1607. The Order's mission is education, focused on the person in all their uniqueness. The members of the Order use the initials O.D.N. ( la, Ordinis Dominae Nostrae) after their names.
History
Founding
De Lestonnac was born into a prominent family of Bordeaux in 1556. At the age of 17 she married and had eight children. She was widowed after 24 years of marriage. After a brief period as
Cistercian nun, she envisioned the establishment of a new kind of religious community, whose essential task would availability to all those in need, most especially for the education of girls.
In 1605, during an outbreak of plague broke in Bordeaux, De Lestonnac helped care for the sick. A number of young women indicated a willingness to join her. During this period, she became acquainted with
Ignatian spirituality through contact with several
Jesuit
, image = Ihs-logo.svg
, image_size = 175px
, caption = ChristogramOfficial seal of the Jesuits
, abbreviation = SJ
, nickname = Jesuits
, formation =
, founders ...
priests. In 1607 the foundation gained the approval of
Pope Paul V of a religious order dedicated to education, with the restrictions, however, of being organized along the
Benedictine model, as an
enclosed religious order of
nuns, with each monastery to be independent. The community took the name of the Compagnie de Notre-Dame.
[Wright, Anthony D., ''The Divisions of French Catholicism, 1629–1645'', Ashgate Publishing, Ltd., 2013]
They were the first female teaching congregation to gain official approval in France.
[Rapley, Elizabeth. ''The Dévotes: Women and Church in Seventeenth-century France'', McGill-Queen's Press - MQUP, 1990]
De Lestonnac and her followers received the
religious habit
A religious habit is a distinctive set of religious clothing worn by members of a religious order. Traditionally some plain garb recognizable as a religious habit has also been worn by those leading the religious eremitic and anchoritic life, ...
of the new Order on 1 May 1608. The following year, the foundation received the approval of King
Henry IV, allowing for expansion in the
Kingdom of France. Five members of the new order completed their period of
novitiate
The novitiate, also called the noviciate, is the period of training and preparation that a Christian ''novice'' (or ''prospective'') monastic, apostolic, or member of a religious order undergoes prior to taking vows in order to discern whether ...
and took their
religious vows
Religious vows are the public vows made by the members of religious communities pertaining to their conduct, practices, and views.
In the Buddhism tradition, in particular within the Mahayana and Vajrayana tradition, many different kinds of re ...
on 10 December 1610, at which time the community established its first school for girls in Bordeaux.
Its houses tended to be located in towns served by Jesuit colleges.
[ Houses were established in Béziers, Poitiers, and Lu Puy (1618), Périgueux (1620), Angen (1621), La Flèche and Riom (1622).
By the time she died in 1640, at the age of 84, 30 monasteries of the Order existed in France.
Historically, they were also known as Les Filles de Notre-Dame and the Sisters of Notre-Dame of Bordeaux.
]
Development
Ten years later, in 1650, the Sisters established a school in Barcelona, their first house outside France. During the 18th century, Order flourished in Spain and in its colonial domains in Latin America. The first school for women in the Americas was founded in Bogotá, Colombia. During the French Revolution the sisters in France were dispersed and some of them were put to death. A number of expatriate religious established new foundations in Belgium, the Netherlands, Italy, Mexico and California.["History of the Order of the Company of Mary, Our Lady"]
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In 1892, the Sisters came to Penzance
Penzance ( ; kw, Pennsans) is a town, civil parish and port in the Penwith district of Cornwall, United Kingdom. It is the most westerly major town in Cornwall and is about west-southwest of Plymouth and west-southwest of London. Situated ...
, soon discovered that, as a semi-enclosed order, they were not really suited to the work of teaching in a parish school. With the Bishop's blessing, they left for London in 1895.
Renewal
In 1920, 63 of the 90 monasteries of the Order voted to drop the monastic life and to unite in a single religious congregation of active Religious Sisters, in keeping with the vision of their foundress. The Sisters then changed their name from the Order of Mary to the Company of Mary, to complement the Company of Jesus, as the Jesuits are called in the Spanish of their founder, Ignatius de Loyola
Ignatius of Loyola, S.J. (born Íñigo López de Oñaz y Loyola; eu, Ignazio Loiolakoa; es, Ignacio de Loyola; la, Ignatius de Loyola; – 31 July 1556), venerated as Saint Ignatius of Loyola, was a Spanish Catholic priest and theologian, ...
. They received the approval of Pope Benedict XV for this change. The next year a General Motherhouse for the united houses of the company was established in Rome. After the changes in canon law governing religious institutes resulting from the Second Vatican Council, the various independent monasteries of the Order united with the company.
Current status
Today the Company of Mary numbers about 1,500 members working in over 400 teaching institutions in 26 nations across the world. These range from nurseries to university colleges and hospitals.
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Company of Mary, Our Lady
1607 establishments in France
Catholic religious institutes established in the 17th century
Counter-Reformation
Catholic orders and societies
Women's congregations following Ignatian spirituality
Catholic teaching orders