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I.
Origins
The Franciscan Nuns of the Most Blessed Sacrament of
Troyes (now known as the Poor Clares of Perpetual Adoration) were
founded by Father Jean-Baptiste Heurlaut, Curé of the Parish Church at
Maizières-lès-Brienne in the department of Aube, France, after his
entrance into the Capuchins of the Province of France, where he took the
name of Father Bonaventure.
While still a young priest, he dreamed of founding a
small community of Nuns in his Parish. To carry out this plan, he sought
the aide of a young woman of his parish whose secret aspirations to the
cloistered life were known to him, and who evidenced an ardent love for
the Holy Eucharist. Her name was Joséphine Bouillevaux.
Born at Maizières on June 1st, 1820, which was, by a touching
coincidence, the Solemnity of Corpus Christi, Joséphine had been formed
in the faith and in the spiritual life by her family which was very
pious and faithful in the practice of their religion. After starting a
school at Maizières, Father Heurlaut left to become a diocesan
missionary. He continued to guide Joséphine and her aunt Jeanne, who
were teachers at the school, and he formed them and the other teachers
into a community in which they lived by a rule. No one could guess what
would later evolve from this core community.
For his part, the founder, feeling called to a more
perfect life, sought to discern the way in which he could best respond
to the plan of God. He decided to enter the Capuchin Fathers. Father
Heurlaut discussed his plan for the community at Maizières with his
future Superiors, and the Father General of the Capuchins replied:
“First enter the Novitiate; after your Profession, the Order will help
you as best it can to found a community of Franciscan Sisters.” On March
25, 1851, the day which recalls to the world the great mystery of
holiness “when Jesus, in the womb of His Mother, took up His first form
of the Eucharist”, Father Heurlaut, founder of an essentially
eucharistic institute, was invested at Marseille in the Franciscan habit
and took the name Father Bonaventure.
One year later, in Paris, he received the Profession of
Joséphine Bouillevaux in the Third Order of Saint Francis (the Secular
Franciscans) and gave her the name of Sister Marie de Sainte-Claire. So
were the supernatural bonds of these chosen souls affirmed in the unity
of the same spirit.
On December 8, 1854, the day of the Proclamation of the
Dogma of the Immaculate Conception, Sister Marie de Sainte-Claire placed
her spiritual projects, desires, hopes and fears under the patronage of
the Blessed Virgin Mary. She also confided to Mary all her daughters
present and future by an act of consecration; this marked the official
beginning of our Order. One week later, on December 15, octave of the
Immaculate Conception, Father Bonaventure invested the first four
postulants in the Franciscan habit. Mother Marie de Sainte-Claire, as
foundress and, at age 34, the oldest in the house, was named Superior.
For a long time, Father Bonaventure wanted to transfer
the community still in the first stages of its development to Troyes,
his diocese of origin. On July 15, 1856, the little colony was
definitively installed in this city which had given birth to the Pope of
the Feast of Corpus Christi, Urban IV. On August 1st of the same year,
the chapel was blessed and placed under the patronage of Our Lady of the
Angels, and Monseigneur Coeur, the Bishop of Troyes, granted the
community permission for perpetual exposition of the Most Blessed
Sacrament, which our Order has not ceased to maintain to the present
day.
In 1868, Blessed Pope
Pius IX accorded the Decree of Erection of the Monastery. Definitive
approbation of the Order was granted by the Sovereign Pontiff in 1899.
Thus the Institute was firmly established as a Congregation of
Pontifical Right.
In 1866, two Polish nuns
sought political refuge in the monastery of Troyes and made their
Profession in our Order. Five years later, on April 28, 1871, they
returned to Poland to found the second monastery of the Institute, under
the direction of the Servant of God Mother Mary of the Cross Morawska.
From this Polish branch, several monasteries have been established in
other countries.
II. The Proliferation of Our Order
From its modest beginnings in the little monastery of
Troyes, our Order has spread around the globe. Today, only 150 years
later, there are more than thirty monasteries in seven countries: two in
Franc—Troyes and Castelnaudary—eight in Poland, one in Austria, one in
Germany, seven in the United States, thirteen in India, and two in
Bangladesh.
Mother M. Angelica, who founded one of our American
monasteries in Alabama, also founded EWTN, a Catholic television
network, which radiates the Eternal Word, Jesus Christ, to the entire
world via television, radio, and electronic media.
The flame of thanksgiving is truly shining throughout the world as the
Poor Clares of Perpetual Adoration continue to offer their hymn of
thanksgiving, captured so simply in their motto:
Let us give thanks to God through Jesus in the Most Blessed Sacrament!
Deo gratias!
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