The history of the Dominican Sisters

On the high lands of the Rouergue rising up from the rolling, wood-crowned hills, his a little steeple, peaceful yet determined. It is the steeple of the convent of Bor , birth place of our Congregation.

The freely given response of a young girl, Alexandrine Conduché, to the call of the Holy Spirit was combined with added the apostolic zeal of the parish priest of the village who had understood the urgent necessity of evangelizing an illiterate rural population threatened by rationalism. Such was the startign-point of the foundation of the Dominicans Sisters of our Lady of the Rosary of Monteils.

This religious family, founded in 1850 and of which Alexandrine, (herceforth Mother Anastasie), was the foundation stone, was from the very beginning grafted onto the greater Dominican tree from which it draws its strength and apostolic impulse. The newly founded convent of Bor quickly saw many parishes asking for Sisters to open a school... The vocations were plentiful, allowing the foundation of convents throughout the Aveyron and beyond. The very real poverty in which the sisters lived, the difficult conditions, the large number of children and the poor state of the buildings, nothing stops these "apostles of the Gospel". They soon moved their Mother House to Monteils which was more accessible and central.

Soon the borders of France are surpassed. In 1885, the young Congregation, answering the request of the Dominican Fathers of Toulouse, sent willing sisters to work with them in the Missions of Brazilian. These courageous Sisters from the Aveyron make the choice to leave their families, their country and their Sisters in order to make their way to the heart of Brazil and to the people there who are deprived of the Gospel, especially the Indians. Today, half of the Congregation is Brazilian and continues its apostolate adapted to the local needs of the people.

Perhaps the following lives sum up the common ideal received form Mother Anastasie: GO TO GOD "STRAIGHT FORWARDLY" BY THE WAY OF DOMINIC - A LIFE WHICH UNITES INTERIORITY, OPENNESS, SIMPLICITY AND DEVOTION WITHOUT MEASURE TO OUR NEIGHBOUR... AN EVER LIVING IMPULSE.

Soeur Luc-Béatrix (Province de France)