An International Congregation, the Sisters of the Presentation of Mary minister in Nineteen Countries on Five Continents:

Africa | Asia | Europe | North America | South America

"MY DAUGHTERS WILL ONE DAY CROSS THE SEAS."  

Saint Marie Rivier

FRANCE - 1796

On November 21, 1796, the feast of the Presentation of Mary at the Temple, Marie Rivier and four of her companions had the incredible audacity to found a community in the midst of the French Revolution, in the small village of Thueyts, Ardèche, France.

SWITZERLAND - 1841

In 1841, three years after the death of Marie Rivier, her daughters realized one of her dreams to establish a foundation in Lausanne, Switzerland.

CANADA - 1853

At the request of Msgr. Prince, Bishop of Saint Hyacinth, Quebec, Sr. St. Maurice and five companions arrive in the New World.  Sainte-Marie de Monnoir (later incorporated as Marieville) becomes their first mission.

UNITED STATES - 1873

On November 18, 1873, at the invitation of the pastor, Father Huberdault, five sisters left Saint Hyacinth, Qc for Glens Falls NY to take charge of his school. In July 1879, they were recalled because of illness and the convent was closed. In 1886, encouraged by his Bishop Mgr. Louis de Goesbriand, Father Trottier invited the sisters to open a school in his parish in Island Pond VT. This was the first permanent mission in the USA.

ENGLAND - 1896

At the end of the 19th Century, fear of civil war and the dispersion of religious orders in France forced our sisters to look to England as a safety net for the Congregation. At the invitation of the Basilian Fathers, they came to Exeter and on March 31, 1896 established the first permanent foundation at Palace Gate. 

SPAIN 1902

The Decree of Expulsion of 1902 forced the Congregation to look to other countries where the sisters could continue to teach as women religious. Thus, the first mission in Spain opened in Peñarraya on November 12, 1902.

ITALY - 1904

At the beginning of the 20th Century, the Congregation was already becoming international. Italy was the next country to welcome the sisters expulsed from France. September 28, 1904 marked the arrival of two sisters at a rented villa in Port-Maurice. This was to be the first foundation in this country. In 1915, at the beginning of WW I, Villa Loreto in Bordighera received its first resident students. In 1967, the General Administration of the Congregation settled in Villa Arte in Castelgandolfo.

MADEIRA - 1925

Sister Marie de la Sainte Trinité, a native of Madeira, became the first Portuguese Sister of the Presentation of Mary. She opened the first mission of the Province of Portugal on March 1, 1925 at the Lactario (Help to poor children). The College of the Presentation of Mary opened in 1926, as did several schools in subsequent years.

PORTUGAL - 1938

On the continent, in 1938 at the request of Cardinal Patriarch of Lisbon, Sr. Marie de la Sainte Trinité opened a boarding school in Sétubal for poor and abandoned girls. She also established most of the Congregation's ministries in Portugal: schools, boarding schools, foyers, social centers. novitiate (1941), House of Prayer at Fatima, and involvement in parish pastoral ministry.

MOZAMBIQUE - 1941

In 1941 at the invitation of Msgr. Teodosio de Gouveia, archbishop of Lourenço Marques, Sister du Coeur de Jésus, sister of Sr. Marie de la Sainte Trinité founded with six Portuguese sisters, the Collège Dom Antonio Barroso, in Lourenço Marques now known as Maputo-Mozambique. Other schools and missions were founded in north and south Mozambique. In 1956 Mozambique became a Region.

JAPAN - 1948

Before the Pacific War, Monsignor Tagushi, Archbishop of Osaka, asked Mother St. Paul, Provincial of Saint Hyacinthe, to send sisters to teach in his diocese in Japan. This wish was finally realized after the war in 1948. The first sisters came from St. Hyacinthe, Quebec and opened a high school in Himeji in 1951.

PHILIPPINES - 1950

In the spring of 1950, Fr. Dion, OMI, and his companion, Father Emile Laquerre, OMI, invited the Sisters of the Presentation, from the Hudson province in the United States, to work with him in Siasi among the Muslims. Mother St. Jeanne-de-Valois, Provincial Superior, in response to Pope Pius XII's request that religious congregations send missionaries to mission lands, accepted the invitation. Sisters St. Pauline, M. Laurentienne, St. Nathalie, and St. Marie des Anges were chosen to minister to the people of Siasi. On October 26, 1950, the four new missionaries arrived in Siasi, Sulu with hearts filled with joy and gratitude.

SENEGAL - 1952

In 1952 at the request to Msgr. Dodds, Apostolic Prefect of Ziguinchor, four sisters: two French, one Canadian, and one Portuguese left for Bignona (Casamance). They took the responsibility of a primary school, of Catholic Action movements and teaching catechesis in French and English. In the following years, they founded in Elana and Balandine, two villages where they opened a dispensary. They radiate out to 30 villages of the area.

IRELAND - 1963

In the summer of 1961, at the request of Mother St. Jeanne d'Arc, Superior General, Sr. Jeanne Touchette was asked to establish a foundation in Ireland. Two years later, the search for a place to establish a convent and a school came to fruition when Sr. Jeanne and Sr. St. Columban (Agnes Kelly) originally from Ireland opened the first Presentation of Mary
Convent in Castleblakeney, Ireland.

PERU - 1963

After Vatican II, the Oblate Fathers of the Canadian Province, responding to the call of Rome, asked the Sisters of the Presentation to found a Technical School for girls in a poor area of Lima, Peru. On September 13, 1963 five sisters from the province of Sherbrooke arrived in Peru. The school opened in Comas in March 1964 with 50 girls. Presently, approximately 1700 students attend this school.

THE GAMBIA - 1968

In October 1968, at the invitation of Msgr. Michael Maloney, Bishop of Gambia, two sisters: Sr. Louise Brachotte and Sr. Fernande Lasnier founded the mission of Serrekunda: which includes 23 villages where they worked as pastoral ministers in large parishes. It was to Sr. Louise Brachotte that Mother St. Jeanne d'Arc confided the responsibility of the mission from its foundation until the nomination of a regional superior. Gambia and Senegal became a region known as Sénégambie.

BRAZIL - 1986

In 1980, Sister Cecilia Silva, a seasoned missionary from Mozambique, is invited to Brazil to help the foundation of the "Villages of Peace," a project which had been founded to come to the needs of the street children. The Congregation accepted the challenge and sent her with Sister du Sacré Coeur de Jésus, Hardy. After supporting this project for six years, the first community of the Presentation was established in Abadiania, in the diocese of Anapolis at the request of the Bishop of the Diocese, Msgr. Manoel Pestana Filho.

CAMEROON - 1989

Knowing that his bishop wished to have Sisters in his diocese, Father Loiseau, OMI, turned to the Sisters of the Presentation of Mary. After months of discernment, the foundation is accepted and the first Sisters: Jacqueline Guité, Lise Thibodeau, Véronique Diémé, and Margaret Camiré left for Atta on January 27, 1989. They began by establishing a primary school, a center for the formation of women, and various ministries.

BURKINA FASO - 2008

January 8, 2000, Msgr Lucas K Sanou requests a community of Sisters for Burkina-Faso in his diocese of Banfora, in Africa. After a year of study and discernment, Mother Angele and her Council accept the invitation and advise Msgr. Lucas in a letter dated May 23, 2007. On September 2, 2008 four daughters of the Woman Apostle leave Senegal for Burkina Faso. On the
feast of Saint Joseph, March 19, 2009 the school, provided by the diocese, is blessed and the first 20 pre-school students enter a class freshly painted and decorated. It is a place of joy both for the students as well as for the parents.

"We must become another Christ."

~Saint Marie Rivier~