Date Published:
July 2008

L’Encyclopédie de l’histoire du Québec / The Quebec History Encyclopedia

Sisters Antoniennes of Mary

Sisters Antoniennes of Mary (Sisters of St. Anthony of Padua). This order was founded in 1904; and like many other orders it owes its existence to local events and to some new needs. For many years the Seminary of Chicoutimi had recourse to the good services in housekeeping of the Sisters of Good Counsel of Chicoutimi. These Sisters, whose principal work was teaching, could not continue this work indefinitely. The Seminary was authorized by the bishop of Chicoutimi to found a new congregation, whose special work would be the interior housekeeping of the Seminaries and all other spiritual or temporal works that could contribute to the recruiting of the clergy. In 1917 the Rev. Father M. P. Hudon, pastor of Murray Bay, with the help of the Sisters Antoniennes, founded an apostolic orphanage at Murray Bay. In 1918 the Seminary of Chicoutimi confided its preparatory class, which became the Apostolic School, to the Sisters. In March, 1924, the Sisters Antoniennes took charge of the housekeeping of the Canadian Seminary of Foreign Missions at Pont Viau. In 1931, they were called to Worcester, Massachusetts, by the Augustinian Fathers of Assumption. The Pathers entrusted them with the housekeeping of their Franco-American College. Later, in 1934, the Sisters Antoniennes accepted the housekeeping of the agricultural school at St. Martine, Châteauguay. The principal aim of the institute, as of all other religious institutes, is the sanctification of its members. Its second purpose is to lend a humble but useful service to the clergy in the work of sacerdotal recruitment. The Institute devotes itself to foreign missions; it also assumes the care of retired priests, the housekeeping of the episcopal houses, and other houses under the direction of the clergy.

Source: W. Stewart WALLACE, ed., The Encyclopedia of Canada, Volume VI, Toronto, University Associates of Canada, 1948, 398p., pp. 7-8.