Today, April 11, 2024, a solemn celebration was held in Besançon to commemorate the 225th Anniversary of the Foundation of the Institute of the Sisters of Charity of St. Jeanne Antide Thouret.
The chapel at 131 Grand Rue, where the Eucharist of Thanksgiving was presided over by the Archbishop of Besançon, Msgr. Jean-Luc Bouilleret, is a place charged with profound meaning for the entire community of the Sisters of Charity, scattered throughout the world.
The celebration was an occasion of gratitude for the precious anniversary and for the legacy that the Foundress, St. Jeanne Antide Thouret, left to the Sisters who decided to dedicate their lives to the service of the poorest.
Those present actively participated in the celebration, bringing to the altar signs representing the seven religious Provinces that make up the Institute.
Outside, an exhibition, dense with symbols and objects, took visitors back to the past and told the story of that April 11, 1799, when St. Jeanne Antide decided to open the first school. The desks dating from that occasion and dedicated to the free education of poor or orphaned young girls thus become symbols of concrete Charity.
