Congregation of Notre Dame of Montreal

La Venerable Marguerite Bourgeoys by Pierre Le Ber in the possession of the Ladies of the Congregation of Notre Dame, Montreal

The Congregation of Notre Dame of Montreal is a religious community for women founded in the colony of New France, now part of Canada, in 1658. It was established by Marguerite Bourgeoys who sought to create a religious community for women where the sisters would not be confined to a convent but be allowed to live among and help the less fortunate.

The Congregation held an important role in the development of New France and the early Sulpician colony as it offered education to girls in their boarding school, watched over newly arrived women to the colony and served as missionaries to the Aboriginal people.

The community's motherhouse has been based in Montreal for over 350 years.

Origins of the Congregation

The Congregation of Notre Dame was a previously well founded women’s religious order created in France by Pierre Fourier and Alix Le Clerc and was committed to education through the organization of the Catholic Church. Bourgeoys joined the more extern Congregation following a great spiritual experience in 1640 and a long search for a place within the more conventional contemplative women’s religious communities. As Bourgeoys helped in the Congregation of Notre Dame, she had a vision of a new kind of religious community for women. This new order took Mary, the mother of Jesus, as their role model and saw her in the Bible as an actor along with Jesus and his apostles. Bourgeoys wanted the women of her new order to be active and among those who needed their help and not simply cloistered in a convent waiting for the down trodden to come to them. Ultimately, this vision, together with her experience in teaching and working in the Congregation of Notre Dame in Troyes, France and an invitation by Paul de Chomedey de Maisonneuve would inspire Bourgeoys to head to New France and establish an educative/proselyting order for women: the Congregation of Notre Dame of Montreal. The Congregation received civil recognition in 1671 from King Louis XIV and finally was granted official status by the Catholic Church in 1698: some 40 years after its creation and only two years before the death of Marguerite Bourgeoys.

The Congregation of Notre Dame of Montreal convent from rue Saint-Jean-Baptiste, ca. 1684-1768, Montreal, Quebec

Location

By 1665, the Congregation consisted of Bourgeoys and three other sisters living in Montreal and teaching in a stone building known as the "stable school" established in 1658 (named such for its previous purpose). The Convent itself was off of Notre-Dame and Saint Paul Street in what is now called Old Montreal. As revealed by its architectural plans, the early convent was a private space, secluded from the public life of Montreal. The convent was placed deeply within its own terrain, and its separation from public life was further hidden by the Hôtel Dieu and the walls that surrounded it. The sisters were then at once afforded protection and seclusion whist surrounded by the colony’s merchants and more rowdy inhabitants such as soldiers and labourers.

The Maison Saint-Gabriel today

Maison Saint-Gabriel

In 1668, Bourgeoys purchased the Maison Saint-Gabriel in Montreal: a farm property which the sisters of the Congregation of Notre Dame operated for nearly 300 years. It was temporary home for some of the King's Wards, also called the King's Daughters, or Filles du Roi. On the property, the sisters produced food and products to support the Congregation of Notre Dame, new settlers and others in need. Today the property has been developed as a living museum of farming and historic times. The property, outbuildings and grounds have been restored and expanded and the museum houses some 15,000 artifacts recreating the feel of the house from the 17th and 18th century.

Controversy of the Uncloistered

The difficulties of establishing a non-cloistered religious order in 17th century New France exclusively for women are not only found in the paper work. The heavily patriarchal society in Europe influence women’s behaviour in all strides of life including within the Church. Nuns challenged the norm of male surveillance over female life as they lived and worked free from the authority of fathers or husbands. To curb this norm challenging behaviour, nuns normally live cloistered in convents. Marguerite and the Sisters of the Congregation of Notre Dame of Montreal broke this mold but not without controversy. Before 1698, the first few Bishops of Quebec, François de Laval and Jean-Baptiste de La Croix de Chevrières de Saint-Vallier, were never really happy nor did they understand this need of the Congregation to be uncloistered. However, they did recognize the societal need for traveling teachers and counted on Bourgeoys and her group to reach the extremely thin and spread-out population of Canada in these early years. Thus the sisters were allowed to live a relatively uncloistered life. In a very real sense, education needed to be brought to the children far and wide between Quebec-Montreal and beyond. If women were to be the educators, Laval and Saint-Valley recognised the need to have women who could travel and live outside of a convent.

The Bishops' toleration for this uncloistered lifestyle did not last forever. By 1694 Bishop Saint-Vallier had sent the Congregation a new constitution which was met with shock among the sisters. Although the nuns were not opposed to rules, they had enjoyed certain freedoms for approximately forty years, and it is thus not surprising that they were not entirely receptive to the idea of a set of more restrictive/conventional rules. The constitution basically afforded the Congregation the right to officially declare vows and thus gain legitimacy and grow as an organization. On the other hand, the document also stipulated that the sisters were to be obedient and report directly to the Bishop located in Quebec. The document also required them to take solemn vows, attacked their more secular activities in the convent, and instituted the imposition of a dowry. After a few years of resistance, Saint-Vallier’s constitution was eventually accepted in 1698 because the stipulations in the constitution were traditional and had long been enforced in Europe. Cloistering was a tradition and was used to safeguard chastity as well as allow for a more prayerful way of life.

After Saint-Vallier’s Constitution

The new constitution stipulated that the women of the convent had to take simple vows of which was a vow of stability. This meant that women could not leave the convent at their own will. The constitution also created a hierarchical divide among the women of the convent between those who had taken their vows and those who yet had not. A dowry was imposed on the women for the first time which in practice restricted access to women of the lower classes into the convent. The constitution also meant that women who took the oath were required to remain behind the convent walls.

While the new constitution presented a much more traditional convent way of life, these restrictions in no way assured the complete adherence to these new rules. In practice, the rules were enforced, but nuns did not completely restrict themselves to the parish. Many of them continued to teach and travel and lend their expertise to other parishes across New France.

See also

• Peter Fourier
• Marguerite Bourgeoys
• Maison Saint-Gabriel
• François de Laval
• Jean-Baptiste de La Croix de Chevrières de Saint-Vallier

External links

• Congregation of Notre Dame - Official website
• Schola Ministries - A CND Ministry