The Oblates of the Virgin Mary is a religious institute founded by the Venerable Bruno Lanteri, who was born on 12 May 1759 in Northern Italy and died 5 August 1830.
Lanteri grew up in a religious household and developed a strong love for the Virgin Mary at the age of four, after his mother's death. His attraction to what he called "silence and seclusion" prompted him to enter the Carthusians at the age of seventeen. The Oblates of Mary Most Holy began in 1816 as a diocesan congregation.
The Oblates of the Virgin Mary received papal approval from Pope Leo XII on September 1, 1826, almost four years before Lanteri's death. The Oblates of the Virgin Mary came to the United States in 1976. As of 2010, the congregation has expanded into Massachusetts, Colorado, Illinois, California, and a new seminary and retreat center in the Philippines.
Read more about Oblates Of The Virgin Mary: St. Ignatius Province, Around The World
Famous quotes containing the word virgin:
“A hidden strength
Which if Heav’n gave it, may be term’d her own:
‘Tis chastity, my brother, chastity:
She that has that, is clad in compleat steel,
And like a quiver’d Nymph with Arrows keen
May trace huge Forests, and unharbour’d Heaths,
Infamous Hills, and sandy perilous wildes,
Where through the sacred rayes of Chastity,
No savage fierce, Bandite, or mountaneer
Will dare to soyl her Virgin purity,”
—John Milton (1608–1674)