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History of the Congregation
Congregation of Our Lady of the Missions
Sisters of Our Lady of the Missions is an international missionary congregation founded by Euphraise Barbier on 25th December 1861 in Lyons, France. In 1848 Euphraise entered a new missionary institute known as the Sisters of Calvary which was established at Cuves. Euphraise had dreamed that this Institute would help to fulfill her hope of becoming a foreign missionary. However, her desire to be a missionary to foreign countries could not be realized and so she decided to leave the Sisters of Calvary and returned to France looking for other possibilities. The Marist Fathers were looking for an excellent religious who will receive and form young women for mission to New Zealand. Euphraise was invited to fulfill the new plan and hence Institute de Notre Dame des Missions was established in December 1861 in Lyon, France. Euphraise wrote: [The Sisters’] “special end of this Institute is to aid humbly and to the best of their ability to extend the Kingdom of God by devoting themselves to the instruction and Christian education of children and women.” Euphraise Barbier sent her first missionaries to New Zealand in 1864 and other departures followed at regular intervals to Australia, England, Wallis, Tonga and Samoa in Oceania, Bangladesh, Myanmar and Vietnam. Since then the Congregation has spread across to all five continents covering 23 countries in the world. The newest missionary insertions are South Sudan, Laos, Orissa in India, Thai-Myanmar borders, Kazakhstan and Taiwan. Our priorities in mission are among the poor and the marginalised, especially women and children. Our approach to mission is an insertion among people after the example of Jesus journeying with and sharing of who we are and the little we have. In India, we have 20 schools and a college spread across the country - from the North East state of Meghalaya to Kerala providing quality education to girls along with social and pastoral work. Most of our schools, clinics and social work centres serve the poorest of the poor from all faith traditions and cultures. Today, after 153 years of service to the church and society the Sisters continue to keep alive Euphrasie’s vision for her congregation “to extend the Kingdom of God”. |
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