Helene de Chappotin - the young woman
Helen de Chappotin, later to become Mary of the Passion, the foundress of the Franciscan Missionaries of Mary, was born in 1839 in Nantes (France). Her family and her milieu were clearly stamped: landed gentry with roots in Lorraine and Brittany, and time spent abroad in the Antilles. Helen's grandparents, who had emigrated during the French Revolution, returned to Brittany at the Restoration of the Bourbon monarchy. Theirs was a traditional faith, lively but austere, with a fervent attachment to Church and Crown, which were inextricably linked at that period.
At the heart of this large united family, Helen, the youngest, grew up happily among her ten cousins in Le Fort, an old chateau near Nantes. Certain traits in her temperament already indicated her future orientations: a need to swiftly implement whatever seemed to her to be good and worthwhile, a love for the poor and a chivalrous enthusiasm for what she called 'the great causes.'
In the spring of 1864, when Helene had recovered her health, on the advice of her confessor, she entered the monastery of the Sisters of Mary Reparatrix, a religious congregation just recently founded in 1857 by Mother Mary of Jesus, which had opened a house in Toulouse in 1860. They were an enclosed religious order, dedicated to contemplation and the training of women in Ignatian spirituality.On 15 August of that year, she received the religious habit of the congregation and was given the new religious name of Mary of the Passion. Before the end of her novitiate, however, she was assigned to accompany a group of Sisters to the Vicariate Apostolic of Madurai in India, which was under the administration of the Jesuits. There, in addition to their own apostolate, they were to help establish a native congregation of Religious Sisters. It was there that Sr. Mary of the Passion made her first religious vows in the congregation on 3 May 1866.
At the heart of this large united family, Helen, the youngest, grew up happily among her ten cousins in Le Fort, an old chateau near Nantes. Certain traits in her temperament already indicated her future orientations: a need to swiftly implement whatever seemed to her to be good and worthwhile, a love for the poor and a chivalrous enthusiasm for what she called 'the great causes.'
In the spring of 1864, when Helene had recovered her health, on the advice of her confessor, she entered the monastery of the Sisters of Mary Reparatrix, a religious congregation just recently founded in 1857 by Mother Mary of Jesus, which had opened a house in Toulouse in 1860. They were an enclosed religious order, dedicated to contemplation and the training of women in Ignatian spirituality.On 15 August of that year, she received the religious habit of the congregation and was given the new religious name of Mary of the Passion. Before the end of her novitiate, however, she was assigned to accompany a group of Sisters to the Vicariate Apostolic of Madurai in India, which was under the administration of the Jesuits. There, in addition to their own apostolate, they were to help establish a native congregation of Religious Sisters. It was there that Sr. Mary of the Passion made her first religious vows in the congregation on 3 May 1866.