SISTERS OF OUR LADY OF MERCY - S.O.L.M.

SOURCES:
Congregazione delle Suore di N.S. della Mercede - Costituzioni e Direttive, Rome l975.

BIBLIOGRAPHY:
Paul Thone, La vie et l’oeuvre de Mère Thérèse de Jésus Fondatrice des Soeurs N.D. de la Merci, Avignon l954; (the French Academy awarded a prize to this work); Sister Isabel Cano Roldán translated it into Spanish and published it in Santiago (Chile) in l959; Congregazione delle Suore di N.S. della Mercede, Rome l959; Giorgio Papàsogli, Chi perde la propia vita la troverà. Madre Teresa Bacq, Rome l979.

The sisters were established in Nancy (France) on January 2, l864 and joined the Order as Mercedarian Tertiaries with a decree by Fr. Armengol Valenzuela on April 4, l887.

l. THE FOUNDRESS

Elisabeth Bacq founded the Sisters of Our Lady of Mercy. Her religious name was mother Teresa of Jesus, a truly apostolic soul, with a distinguished personality, she inspired many good works. She was born in Paris on September l6, l825 to Anthony Bacq and Christine Acher.

Elisabeth was born and raised in the Lutheran faith, but moved by grace, she converted to Catholicism when she was fourteen and was baptized on May 3l, l839, adding the name of Mary to hers. It was precisely in the church of Our Lady of Paris, on the day of her baptism and first communion, that interiorly enlightened, she committed herself to God, placing her youth in the hands of the Blessed Virgin because, as she was to write later, on that day “the Lord made me understand things that no one had ever told me about before (...), from that day on, I have experienced a total filial devotion to the Blessed Virgin”, entrusting her purity to the Virgin by a vow of chastity.

At the age of l8, in l843, she entered the convent of the “Augustinians of Mary” in Montrouge (Paris) and two years later, she took the vows under the name Teresa of Jesus; in l849 she took her perpetual vows and the vow to be “Jesus’ servant through Mary”. She spent a few years teaching and educating the young. Appointed novice mistress, she fulfilled that position with great fervor for the benefit of the girls. A painful road began for her during that period: much fatigue, generous initiatives, disillusion and misunderstandings which led her to peregrinate and to be at the beginning of three religious congregations.

Because of misunderstandings with the sisters, mother Teresa left the Montrouge monastery with the archbishop of Paris’ authorization. Msgr. Carlos Marcial A. Lavigerie, bishop of Nancy, later cardinal, was well aware of mother Teresa’ value and ability for direction and organization. He encouraged and supported her and on January 2, l864 mother Teresa along with sisters Santa María and San Ignacio, who had left the Montrouge convent and who were also teachers, formed a small community in Nancy under the name of the Ladies of Mary. And so, she started something for the youth in St. Leon’s parish, where subsequently she founded a teaching center for girls. The small community grew with good vocations and mother Teresa wrote the Constitutions for the community which she called the Sisters of Our Lady’s Assumption. On December 8, l865 the bishop approved the Constitutions and on February l2, l867 the community was canonically established as the Diocesan Congregation with mother Teresa as the foundress.

However, the tender plant was overwhelmed by a deadly storm: the Franco-Prussian war. In l870, the Prussians invaded the flourishing Nancy boarding school which was abandoned by the students while the sisters suffered hunger, oppression and violence at the hands of the invaders. The difficulties were tremendous: lack of resources, deprived of the moral support of Msgr. Lavigerie who had left for Africa, the religious accepted the invitation of their advisor who, as Algeria’s bishop, was calling them to this far away land to organize a great missionary work for the conversion of Africa, the bishop’s own idea. On November ll, l87l the first expedition with four sisters from the Assumption arrived in Algeria where they took charge of the San Eugenio’s boarding school. Several years later, a second group arrived with mother Teresa to increase the ranks. The Nancy house was deserted and mother Teresa was appointed general superior of the Religious for the African Mission (the new name which the bishop had given to the three combined branches of religious: the Sisters of the Assumption, the Augustinians and the Hieronymites) with a house in Kouba, where an orphanage for approximately 300 girls appeared immediately. The sisters were enthusiastic about their new apostolic involvement. The first Christian centers were organized, and they were actively working to open the hospitals of saint Cipriano and saint Elisabeth, whose official inauguration occurred in l876 in the presence of all the local authorities. They had hospitals and laboratories for young Arab girls: there were countless baptisms, adopted children and marriages celebrated in the church.

Despite serious difficulties, the sisters fervently continued their task of Christian evangelization and civilization. However, the combining of three different religious groups did not turn out well, therefore, there was a new separation in l879 and mother Teresa followed by a few sisters had to leave this missionary work so well on the way into the hand of sisters now called the White Sisters, with one of her religious as superior general of the new institution. However, the St. Eugenio’s boarding school was kept with her community.
Mother Teresa went back to France to become once again the superior general of the Sisters of Our Lady’s Assumption. They returned to their earlier commitment to teaching young people in the house of Aix-en-Provence, a house which she had obtained when she left Nancy to go to Africa. Shortly after, she moved to Belgium where she founded various schools: in Engis, Basse-Avvire and Landane. Her daughters are well received and appreciated everywhere. She founded another school in Vif (Grenoble), established the novitiate in Basse-Jarrie (Isère) and in l88l new houses were opened in Cannes, La Tour du Pin, Tourcoing, Lisieux.

Msgr. Fava, bishop of Grenoble, opened a new apostolic horizon to the Sisters of the Assumption, a horizon well suited to teaching: religious involvement with the workers. Mother Teresa was fond of the new mission and she began her task with the workers of the centers of Grenoble, Lisieux, Tourcoing and she had her religious committed to this mission called the Little Sisters of the workers. They were officially recognized as a Congregation on May 3l, l88l and mother Teresa herself signed the documents as the superior general of the Little Sisters of the workers. Father Sambin was the ecclesiastical delegate for the institution: he represented the bishop and fulfilled his wishes. The work developed very quickly and a year and a half later, the sisters already had six work centers. But, at the end of l884, due to serious disagreements between mother Teresa and father Sambin, about the organization and the marian spirit which she wanted to give to the Congregation, she left her position as superior general and went back to her post as superior general of the Sisters of the Assumption, now reduced to a very small group. For the fourth time, mother Teresa was forced to start her work again. First, she gathered the sisters in Aix, then in Cannes and later in St. Eugenio in Algeria because cardinal Lavigerie believed it was the opportune moment to entrust the boarding school to the Assumption Sisters.

Humiliated, but not overcome, mother Teresa worked and prayed. The arrival of so many postulants, the great progress of St. Eugenio’s boarding school gave her the strength to sacrifice herself for the sake of her community. She was perfectly aware of the precarious conditions of her Congregation, which was only diocesan, and saw the need to make it more stable by joining some men’s Order honoring the Blessed Virgin to whom she was very devoted. Advised by cardinal Lavigerie, she addressed herself to the Mercedarian Order with whom she found affinities in terms of the spirit of charity and devotion to the Virgin. She asked for and obtained official aggregation on April 4, l887.

In l890, she inaugurated a hospice in Ajaccio (Corsica) in the presence of the authorities. Then, trials came once again. In l892, the misinformed ecclesiastical authorities showed some discontent. There was a certain uneasiness among the sisters. Quite concerned, mother Terese went to Paris where - as she herself said - at Our Lady’s feet, she found the courage and the strength to work and make sacrifices. She went from door to door in search of material help which did not come, meeting only with bitterness, contradictions and humiliations. Her strong fiber broke down and she died on June 2, l896, in Paris, alone and far from all the sisters whom she loved, in a miserable hospital room without even the refreshment of a single drop of water. A painful wound had afflicted her for many years, but she had suffered in silence offering everything as the supreme sacrifice for the daughters of her heart.

In her life of peregrination, sufferings and misunderstandings, but fruitful in many good works, mother Teresa was the messenger of what she believed to be God’s will. A devoted daughter of the church, she was always ready to fulfill the wishes of the bishops whom she had the opportunity to meet; a soul in deep union with God, she loved the cross and always accepted the total sacrifice and gift of self to promote the works she had begun. Her letters are filled with expressions of surrender to the will of God who wanted to test her through so much physical and especially spiritual suffering; but her humility and abnegation, virtues which she always encouraged in her daughters, were the living fountain and the inner power for so much heroism. The Lord had made her understand the greatness of spiritual motherhood which she exercised with exemplary kindness and untiring zeal, with a great spirit of faith and charity, always sustained by indomitable hope until death in a spirit of of abandonment and sacrifice for the good of others.

2. PROFILE AND DEVELOPMENT OF THE INSTITUTE

The Sisters of Our Lady’s Assumption, founded in Nancy on January 3, l864 in order to teach young people, had always preserved their diocesan character. After many peregrinations and trials endured by mother Teresa, the sisters began their religious life again in l884, first in the Aix-en-Provence house, then in Cannes and in St. Eugenio’s boarding school in Algeria.

Mother Teresa, who wanted to provide the Congregation with a stable organization, wished to join a men’s institute and she went in the direction of the Mercedarian Order where she found the same spirit of charity and devotion to the Blessed Virgin. Having reworked the early Constitutions to adapt them to the new situation, on February 2, l887 she had the congregation take the name of Sisters of Our Lady of Mercy. On April 4, l887, she obtained from father Pedro Armengol Valenzuela, the Mercedarian general, the document of aggregation to the Institute as Mercedarian Tertiaries.

The Institute’s charism is characterized by an apostolic and marian spirit in the works of charity or mercy. The first Constitutions approved in Nancy in l865 stated: “This religious family was formed to honor the life of Jesus in Mary and through Mary in a special way. The objective of this Institute is, therefore, to glorify our Lord Jesus Christ by studying and imitating the humble and hidden virtues practised by Mary in her earthly life”. This spirit is reiterated in the l975 Constitutions. There, the charism of the Congregation is presented the following way: “Such spirit, based on redeeming charity and humility, of which mother Teresa gave an unmistakable example, involves an ardent faith, intense charity, unlimited dedication, a zeal which rejects nothing that can please God and be beneficial to souls” (Constitution 5). These expressions suggest the sense of the spirit of the Mercedarians’ fourth vow, according to which one is ready to give one’s life to preserve the faith of people suffering antievangelical oppression. The directory states: “The Mercedarian message inspired the Constitutions of the Congregation whose objective is the sanctification of their own members and of neighbors’, by works of mercy, charity and in the apostolate” (Ibid 0l). These works have an educational focus with the schools, assistance in hospitals, hospices for the elderly, preventoria and they have a missionary character in mission lands. In all of them, the objective is to alleviate the many forms of human misery and sufferings with a spirit of liberation and self-gift: of liberation, because even if there are no more captives who must be freed as in other times, they are still many people who are enslaved by sin and who must be converted, unbelievers to be enlightened, miseries to be alleviated and faults to be atoned for; self-gift, because charity can only be practised with the gift of oneself. This is characteristic of the Mercedarian redeeming spirit, following the luminous example and model of the Blessed Virgin to whom the Congregation is profoundly devoted.

During its first years, the Congregation led and supported by mother Teresa with heroic courage and profound faith in the never-ending trials, worked intensely and fruitfully in its apostolate in France, Africa, Belgium. Its great development occurred after the foundress’ death. Under the leadership of the second superior general, mother Filomena (l896-l936), the Congregation became stronger. Encouraged and assisted by the bishop of Aix-en-Provence, mother Filomena established the mother house in that city, she had the original Constitutions revised to adapt them to new works and to canonical requirements and she started the formalities for the Congregation’s approval by the holy see. On March 25, l9l2, pope Pius X granted the decretum laudis to “the Institute of the Sisters of Our Lady of Mercy, after having increased the numbers of sisters and established various houses with very wholesome results”. On June l3, l93l, Pius XI approved the Constitutions ad experimentum and Pius XII granted the definitive approval on May 6, l94l.

During the leadership of the third superior general, mother Margarita María Thomas (l936-l952), the Institute was divided into three provinces in l937: the French province with 9 houses, the Chilean one with ll and the Italian house with 7. After the anguishing war years, the life of the Congregation became even more vibrant: many more sisters and houses. This was particularly true for Italy where the number of sisters and houses is steadily increasing to the extent that their activities spread to other nations. Much of the present growth of the Congregation is due to the untiring work of mother María of the Divine Heart, first as provincial for Italy (l937-l952) and then as superior general (l952-l970). At the end of l978, the Congregation had 486 religious in the 58 existing houses in France, Italy, Belgium, Africa, Chile, Israel and the United States. The Congregation also has novitiates in Blaudain (Belgium) for the French province, in Rome for the two Italian provinces and in san Javier for the Chilean province.

The general house is located at 22 Ostriana Street, Rome.