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)
“Passing through here in 1795, Bishop Asbury commented, ‘The country improves in cultivation, wickedness, mills, and stills.’ Five years later, he held a meeting in the neighborhood and remarked that he thought most of the congregation had come to look at his wig.”
—Administration in the State of Sout, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)
“Of lower states, of acts of routine and sense, we can tell somewhat; but the masterpieces of God, the total growths and universal movements of the soul, he hideth; they are incalculable. I can know that truth is divine and helpful; but how it shall help me I can have no guess, for so to be is the sole inlet of so to know.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“I go the way that Providence dictates with the assurance of a sleepwalker.”
—Adolf Hitler (1889–1945)