The Congregation of Divine Providence was founded by Father Jean-Martin Moye, a French priest who saw the lack of educational opportunities for females in his parish in Lorraine, France.
On January 14, 1762, Father Moye sent out educated women to teach in those rural areas and to administer the word of God. These four women, including one Marguerite LeComte, lived, like the first members of the Church, without provisions, trusting instead in God's divine Providence, hence the resultant congregation's name. The name was actually thought up by the villagers themselves.
Father Moye later traveled to China to do missionary work, then returned to France to administer the new congregation. He succumbed to typhus during the French Revolution in 1793 and was beatified in 1954. His feast day is May 4.
The Congregation of Divine Providence was formally established at Saint-Jean-de-Bassel, in 1827. Its existence now stretches over four continents. Within the United States, the Congregation is located in Melbourne, Kentucky, and San Antonio, Texas.
Famous quotes containing the words congregation of, congregation, divine and/or providence:
“In 1862 the congregation of the church forwarded the church bell to General Beauregard to be melted into cannon, “hoping that its gentle tones, that have so often called us to the House of God, may be transmuted into war’s resounding rhyme to repel the ruthless invader from the beautiful land God, in his goodness, has given us.””
—Federal Writers’ Project Of The Wor, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)
“In 1862 the congregation of the church forwarded the church bell to General Beauregard to be melted into cannon, “hoping that its gentle tones, that have so often called us to the House of God, may be transmuted into war’s resounding rhyme to repel the ruthless invader from the beautiful land God, in his goodness, has given us.””
—Federal Writers’ Project Of The Wor, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)
“Never has any one been less a priest than Jesus, never a greater enemy of forms, which stifle religion under the pretext of protecting it. By this we are all his disciples and his successors; by this he has laid the eternal foundation-stone of true religion; and if religion is essential to humanity, he has by this deserved the Divine rank the world has accorded him.”
—Ernest Renan (1823–1892)
“They have their belief, these poor Tibet people, that Providence sends down always an Incarnation of Himself into every generation. At bottom some belief in a kind of pope! At bottom still better, a belief that there is a Greatest Man; that he is discoverable; that, once discovered, we ought to treat him with an obedience which knows no bounds. This is the truth of Grand Lamaism; the “discoverability” is the only error here.”
—Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881)