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The word “mission” comes from the Latin mittere or “to send”.
In Marguerite’s time, to go on mission meant, for a Sister of the Congregation, to be sent to work outside the Mother House in Montreal. By extension, all these other houses came to be called “missions”. At first, the community generally would accept the responsibility for the establishment of a new mission and select who was to be sent, always in response to an invitation or request. Later, major superiors decided where new missions would open and named the Sisters who would go there. The Sisters received “nominations” telling them where they were “sent.”
For over three centuries, the Sisters have been engaged in carrying on the mission of Marguerite Bourgeoys, who crossed the ocean to take part in the development of a fledgling colony, which would embody the ideal of the first Christian community. Already during Marguerite’s lifetime, the work begun in Ville-Marie expended further and further, in response to the needs of the people and the pressing requests of the priests and bishops. Gradually, the Church asked that the Congrégation de Notre-Dame be present in Ontario, in the Maritime Provinces and in the United States. Later, the Sisters widened their field of action even more to work in Japan, Central America, Africa and France.
This is how we come to find today Sisters and Associates of the CND, inspired by the charism of their foundress, living and working in the four corners of the world.
Canada and the Congregation : A Shared History
United States: First Mission Country
Japan: Catholic Faith in the Land of the Rising Sun
The CND in Central America: a Growing Community
Cameroon: We are Together!
Following Marguerite’s Footsteps in France