Daughters of Charity of St. Vincent de Paul West Central Province
Daughters of Charity of St. Vincent de Paul West Central Province
Daughters of Charity of St. Vincent de Paul West Central Province
Over 360 years ago, in 1633, a French widow named Louise de Marillac and a French priest named Vincent de Paul, founded the Daughters of Charity to serve the poor in France. In the 19th century, Elizabeth Ann Seton, an American mother and widow, followed their tradition by founding a community of sisters in the United States which later merged with the Daughters in France.
Deeply moved by the poverty and suffering all around him in Paris in the 1600’s, Vincent de Paul gave his energies to the needs of the poor. He tended first to their spiritual needs through education of the clergy and the preaching of missions, a work which continues today through The Congregation of the Mission, a religious community of priests commonly know as Vincentians.
Louise de Marillac was a wife, mother, widow, teacher, nurse and social worker. She was an organizer, a radical thinker who lived her life intensely and enthusiastically, and a woman whose quest in life was to do the will of God with deep trust in Divine Providence.
Guided by her spiritual director, Vincent de Paul, her action became directed towards the service of Christ in the poor. She first helped to organize people in parishes to alleviate the misery of needy parishioners and then began to form a community of young women dedicated to the service of person who were poor – the Daughters of Charity of St. Vincent de Paul.
Together, Vincent and Louise organized hospitals for the sick poor, founded institutions for abandoned children, opened soup kitchens, created job training programs, taught the young to read, bettered prison conditions and organized countless charities in villages throughout France.
Elizabeth Ann Seton holds a special place in the story of the Catholic church in America as well as in the story of the Daughters of Charity in America. Elizabeth married when she was 19 and have five children before her husband died. After his death, she converted to the Catholic faith. She and her children moved to Baltimore where she started a small school where other women soon joined her. This became the nucleus of the first American order of Catholic sisters. The tiny school she started is considered the start of the Catholic school system in the United States. Mother Seton, as she came to be known, died in 1821 but the community she founded spread and today consists of six different groups. The sisters of Emmitsburg joined with the Daughters of Charity of St. Vincent de Paul in Paris in 1850.
Throughout their history, the Daughters of Charity have provided spiritual and physical comfort to persons who are poor. Today the Daughters of Charity are an international community of over 19,000 women serving people all over the world. The Daughters continue their ministry as they face the challenges of finding ways to humanize technology, promote human development and effectively address complex social issues. You will find them living and working in social justice areas, in hospitals, orphanages, schools, with homeless persons, alongside people with addictions or disabilities – anywhere there is need or poverty you can find the Daughters of Charity.