October 15 1800, Rue des Martelots: “Five poor daughters of good will consecrate themselves to God”

October 15 1800, Rue des Martelots

“Five poor daughters of good will consecrate themselves to God”

Our foundress, like many others, with her first companions, who were likewise daughters of a time of revolutions, wars and exoduses, didn’t pretend to change the world. She had neither the vision, nor the strength and not even the means. But she transformed, a small road, rue des Martelots, while establishing there, in a small apartment, within the space of a yard, a metal recipient, a classroom and a sort of pharmacy.

To put it in St. Vincent’s words, “an organized charity”, which had begun to take shape already on the 11^th April 1799 and continued its organization gradually through the life of a community  of “five poor daughters”, who on the 15^th October 1800, decided together to entrust everything in God’s hands, to consecrate themselves to Him and to serve the poor for Him. A community at the service of the mission.

Dearest sisters, the problems of humanity overflow our possibilities. We haven’t the keys to change the world. But we possess the power of the small steps: those which only the Paschal mystery can help us to fulfill and which in the Gospel find again the door that opens on the future: charity!

Suor Nunzia, Circulare 2019, Rome, 20^th 

The expression, “five poor daughters of good will”, is pronounced by Mgr. De Chaffoy, defining the first sisters of charity, during the celebration of October 15^th , 1800, in rue des Martelots. Cf. Trochu F, “Saint Jeanne Antide”, Ancora Ed. 1961; p. 177