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Our
founders
Rose Giet and Jean-Maurice Catroux |
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The call of God echoes in History, and in the heart of
our personal histories. |
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Welcome
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Our
Congregation was founded in 1823 by Jean-Maurice Catroux, the parish priest
of La Salle de Vihiers and Rose Giet, born of this village devastated by the
Vendée Wars. |
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Our Founders centered their life on the person of Christ,
through the Love he came to reveal to mankind; it is the meaning of the name
they chose for the new-founded Congregation: Daughters of the Charity of the
Sacred Heart of Jesus. |
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Rose Giet's faith was deeply rooted in her family
upbringing and was marked by the French Revolution and more especially by
the Wars of Vendée. She witnessed the battle of Coron, on the 11th
of April 1793. She was then attending the school run by the Sisters of
Wisdom in this small village during the fightings which put the surroundings
through fire and sword.
Two events impressed her on that dramatic day: a statuette
of Our Lady that nobody had ever noticed fell upon her knees,
and when, in panic, she fled with her sister from the gun firing,
they took the wrong turn to
Chemillé instead of La Salle de Vihiers.
Fortunately they were put back
by enemy soldiers (the dreaded Blues) on the right road to their family farm
La Fouquette. |
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The
Revolution caused ravage in Rose's own family and in the neighbouring farms.
In 1794 her mother sheltered a little girl found half-dead on the body of
her murdered mother and brought up with her own children. Rose was the
witness of her mother's unshaken charity.
She saw the school of
La Salle de Vihiers destroyed, the church partly set on fire and she
remembered the difficulties and hardships always born of war. When grown up,
she will show great concern for the needy and aged of the parish. |
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In 1821 a
young priest Jean Maurice Catroux from the Saumur district was appointed at
La Salle de Vihiers. He had been ordained two years before, and when he
arrived he sized up the needs of his parish in the field of education of the
children and care of the sick.. He then called upon Rose as he had discerned
her faith and devotion. |
