SISTER OF ST. PAUL de CHARTRES

Soeur de Saint Paul de Chartres –  Soeur Marie-Stéphane du Notre Dame de Lumière, S.P.C.                                                     “Caritas Christi Urget Nos”  –  (Latin)                                                                                                  ” L’amour de Christ Nous Presse”  –  (French)                                                                                             “The Love of Christ Impels Us”  –  (English)                                                                         As an apostolic missionary, she is a” light-bearer for the world”

Founders:  Père Louis Chauvet  (personal motto: “Ultima latet”  “The last hour is unknown.”)                           Mère Marie Anne de Tilly

Place:  Levesville-la-Chenard, France  (60 miles SE of Paris)

Date:  1696 A.D.

Her Charism:  Spurred by the love of Christ, this Sister consecrates herself to God through the vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience, and aspires to the perfection of charity through union with God and service to neighbor.  She is a joyful, humble, creative woman who is passionately “on fire” with God’s love.  Animated by hope and characterized by tranquil daring, she sees God in everyone, especially the less fortunate, and in all Creation.  Freed by the Gospel, she risks all to be “bread for the world” and the compassionate Christ for the suffering and the poorest of the poor.  Her spirituality is Christocentric-Paschal.  Therefore, she is marked by the Paschal Mystery that seared the life of her founders: life to her is Christ.  Christ is the Center and Source of her life, and her Reason-for-Being (raison d’être).  Dedicated to education and caring for the sick with Compassion, Authenticity, Respect, and Excellence (CARE), she recognizes in each person she meets the person of Our Lord Jesus Christ following the example of her patron, St. Paul the Apostle and the Blessed Virgin Mary, her model and patroness.  This Sister prefers to go places other Congregations cannot go in order to conquer ignorance, apathy, and illiteracy of the poor and orphaned.  By her Baptism and religious consecration she is “all to all” and accepts the responsibility of building a better, brighter world. and commits herself to carry on Christ’s mission of healing and liberation.  Her aim is to keep the light of Christ burning in her heart, so that every one of her words and actions become streaks of light that pierce through the darkness in our world and further the growth of the Kingdom of God.  By living the imitation of Christ in evangelical simplicity and by trusting implicitly in God’s love and missionary daring, this Sister invites others to live it also with the belief that God is Love!  (Dieu est Amour!)