Saint marguerite bourgeoys biography of jose rizal

Foundress and first superior of the Sisters of the Congregation de Notre Dame; b.

PLAYERS and St. Marguerite. Bourgeoys Parish

Troyes, France, April 17, ; d. Montreal, Canada, January 12, The daughter of a prosperous merchant, Marguerite grew up in a quiet corner of Champagne. In , after several unsuccessful attempts to enter the cloister, she sailed for Canada with Paul de C. Maisonneuve, governor of Montreal, a frontier garrison in New France , founded only twelve years before.

There, in , she opened the first school in Montreal in an abandoned stone stable. Within a few years she had established a school for native people, a native mission, a boarding school for the daughters of merchants, and a training school for the poor. As the scope of her work grew, she brought assistants from France; later, Canadian-born girls and two Natives joined her in her work.

The group developed into a new kind of religious community, not bound to the cloister, but free to go, dressed in the costume of the poor, wherever their zeal and the needs of the people demanded. In , two years before her death, the Congregation de Notre Dame won ecclesiastical approval. The foundress consistently refused endowments, dowries for her companions, and gifts of money that would have made her life less directly dependent on God.

She and her religious supported themselves by sewing, and lived frugally so that they could give alms to the poor. They began needed buildings without the money to complete them, and offered the work of their hands in exchange for the services of carpenters and masons. After a disastrous fire in December of , the community was left destitute.