Congregation of the Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament

The Congregation of the Blessed Sacrament is an enclosed religious order and a reform of the Dominican Order devoted to the perpetual adoration of the Blessed Sacrament. They are commonly referred to as the Sacramentines.^[1] The Perpetual Adorers of the Blessed Sacrament, also called Sacramentines, were a female religious congregation, who, in 1941, became part of the Assumptionist Order, the Orantes of the Assumption.^[2]

Foundation

Friar Antoine Le Quien, O.P., (1601–1676), established a religious house for women, exclusively devoted to the practice of Perpetual Adoration. He had entered the Dominican Order, and after ordination was named master of novices at Avignon, and later prior of the monastery at Paris. In 1639 Père Antoine founded this house at Marseille.^[3]

Sister Anne Negrel was named the first Superior. The definitive establishment took place in 1659-60, when Etienne de Puget, Bishop of Marseille, erected them into a congregation under the title of Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament. The final formalities for the approval of the order having been concluded in Rome (1680), Pope Innocent XI expedited a papal brief, which could not be put in execution because of a change of bishop. Pope Innocent XII issued a new brief the same year in which the Process was opened for the canonization of its founder.

French Revolution period

The only foundation of the order during the 18th century was made at Bollène, in the Vaucluse, in 1725.

Sixty years later, during the period of the Terrors of the French Revolution, that monastery, then under the leadership of Mother de La Fare, the Couvent du Saint-Sacrement saw 13 of its members executed,^[4] from 5 to 26 July 1794, among them Andrée Minutte,^[5][6] and Marie-Marguerite Bonnet.^[7] The process for the canonization of these martyrs was opened at Rome in January 1907.

Mother de La Fare, having escaped the guillotine, gathered together the remnant of her community in 1802, and made a foundation at Avignon in 1807. The same year a Sacramentine of Marseille founded a monastery at Aix-en-Provence.

Nineteenth century

In 1816 the monastery in Marseille was reopened, and Mother de La Fare made a new foundation at Carpentras. In 1859 six Sisters of Aix founded a house at Bernay, Normandy, and in 1863 Sisters from Bollène founded a Monastery of Perpetual Adoration at Taunton, England. Oxford also had a foundation.

All the houses of this Order are autonomous and dependent on the Ordinary of the diocese, who is their superior. In consequence of the legal position of religious congregations in France, the Sacramentines of Marseille were obliged to abandon their monastery. The four other houses in southern France were authorized by the Government.

Twentieth century

The Sacramentines of Bernay at the time of the expulsion, July, 1903, were compelled to close their boarding-school and go into exile. Thirteen of the sisters retired to Belgium, and founded a house at Hal. The rest of their community settled in England at Whitson Court, Newport, Monmouthshire; they had left by the 1930s.^[8]

In March 1911, the Sacramentines were permitted by Archbishop Farley to open a monastery in Holy Trinity Parish in Yonkers, New York, their only community in the Americas. They purchased the Ethan Flagg House in 1915 and added a monastery and school for girls in 1922. They closed the school in the 1980s and relocated to Warwick, New York in 1991.^[9] It was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1998.^[10]

Notes

1. "Congregation of the Blessed Sacrament". Catholic Encyclopedia.
2. http://www.assomption.org/ephemerides/fichemois.php?mois=4&jour=7
3. Nathan Mitchell, Cult and Controversy: The Worship of the Eucharist Outside Mass (1982), p. 207.
4. Les Martyrs Xii
5. Andrée Minutte
6. Les 32 Bienheureuses Martyres d'Orange
7. Marie-Marguerite Bonnet
8. Welsh Icons - Whitson
9. Peter D. Shaver (June 1998). "National Register of Historic Places Registration: Ethan Flagg House-Blessed Sacrament Monastery". New York State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation. Retrieved 2011-01-01.
10. Staff (2009-03-13). "National Register Information System". National Register of Historic Places. National Park Service.

References

 This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Herbermann, Charles, ed. (1913). "Perpetual Adorers of the Blessed Sacrament". Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton. The entry cites:

• • Helyot, Histoire des Ordres, IV, 421 sq.;
  • Heimbucher, Die Orden und Kongregationen, s.v. Sakramentinerinnen.