Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 11.djvu/762

 PERPETUAL

698

PERPETUAL

of the Blessed Sacrament, devoting themselves to all that, compatible with a life of retirement, can further Its Klory: relijiious instruction, iircpuration for first Communion, retreats, etc. Their clunTlics with the Blessed Sacrament exposed are always open to the public. By their principal work, the association, they strive to increase love for tlic Blessi'd .Sacrament, by hours of adoration, grants of vestments to poor churches, the Forty Hours Devotion, etc. The asso- ciation s])rcad rapidly thronnhout the world (in Amer- ica it is frccjuently called "Tabernacle Society"). In 185:5 it w:is erected an archassociation with power to affiliate others. The decree of Leo XIII transferrins it to Rome (February, 1879) declares: "The archasso- ciation is one with the institute in name and in its ob- ject, it is subordinate to the institute as to its head, and must be subordinate to it in virtue of the constitutions approved by the Holy See". The archassociation was raisetl to the rank of primn priinaria, July, 1,S95. The institute lias many houses in Europe. In August, 1880, it was introduced into England by Cardinal Herbert Vaughan, then Bishop of Manchester. Its first foundation in America was at Washington, D. C, October, 1900.

C. L. Martin.

Perpetual Adoration, Religious of the, a con- templative religious congregation, founded in 1.526 by Sister Elizabetli Zwirer (d. 1.540), at Einsiedeln, Swit- zerland, and following the Benedictine rule. At the beginning of the year 17.89 they commenced the prac- tice of adoration of the Blessed Sacrament during the day before the closed tabernacle. A lay association was established, the members of which contributed a small sum of money for the expenses of the sanc- tuary necessitated by perpetual adoration. On 2 May, 1798, during the French invasion the sisters were ex- pelled and their monastery ruined. Five years later, after the Concordat of Napoleon, the community returned. Acting on the advice of their confessor, Father Pierre Perrot, the sisters, on 8 January, 1846, began the practice of adoration by night as well as by day. In 1852 to signify their devotion to the Blessed Sacrament, they decided to wear a figure of an osten- sorium on the breast of their habit. In 1859 Empress Elizabeth of Austria presented the monastery with a magnificent chalice and a reliquary. A new church was opened in 1882, and is adorned with three beauti- ful paintings, representing the adoration of Christ. The convent at Einsiedeln is the only house of its kind, and has its own novitiate. In 1909 the community numbered 46 professed sisters and 5 novices.

Arthur Letellier.

Perpetual Adoration, Sisters of the (Quimper,

France), an institute of nuns devoted to perpetual adoration of the Bl&ssed Sacrament and to the educa- tion of orphan children; founded at Quimper (Brit- tany), bv Abb^' Francois-Marie Langrez (b. at Saint Servan, "20 July, 1787; d. at Quimper, 10 August, 1862). In early youth Frangois-Marie had been an apprentice rope-maker, but he began to study the classics at sixteen, and was ordained 19 December, 1812. In December, 1821, he conceived the first idea of the work he subsequently founded. Two poor homeless little girls crossed his path. He con- fided them to Marguerite Le Mattre, a domestic serv- ant. Other orphans were found and sheltered. In 1826 Marguerite's home contained an oratory and was provided with a dormitory holding thirty beds. Three years later she received her first two co-labour- ers, and on 21 November, 1829, the first chapel of the institute was opened. In 1S;!2, Mile Olympe de Moi^ien, in whose family Marguerite I.e Maitre had been a servant when she began her charitable work, entered the little society, being made superioress, 10 March, 1833. On 20 January, 1835, M^re Olympe

and her companions first put on the religious habit. In September, 1835 a tentative rule of life was drawn up by Abb6 L.anprez. In Marcli. 1S36, the first sisters made their vows. On 27 Mareli, 1837, Sis- ter Marguerite Le Mai'tn- died. .Vdoration of the Blessed Sacrament which was l>egun in March, 1836, did not become perpetual, day and night, till 1843, eight days after the death of I\lere Olympe, who left after her a great reputation for sanctity. At that time the community numbered 11 choir sisters, 4 postulants, and had charge of 70 children. In 1845 their rule was appmved by Mgr (iniveran. Bishop of tjuimper. .\ little later they were recognized by the C!o\-ernment under the title of Sisters of the Perpetual Adoration. On 10 May, 1851, a house was founded at Recouvrance, transferred, 28 October, 1856, to Coat-ar-Gu^ven, near Brest. This and the house at Quimper are the only ones that practise perpetual adoration. In 1882, the institute contained 400 or- phan girls and 128 religious. Since its foundation, it has received 1754 orphan girls, of whom 1000 have embraced the reUgious life in dilTercnt congregations. Arthur Letellier.

Perpetual Adorers of the Blessed Sacrament

(S.\CRAMENTiNEs). — Anton Le Quien, b. in Paris, 23 Feb., 1601, the founder of the first order exclusively devoted to the practice of Perpetual Adoration, en- tered the Dominican Order, and after ordination was named m.aster of novices at Avignon, and later prior of the convent at Paris. "During the seventeenth cen- tury", we read in his works, edited by Pot ton, "we find only two religious orders that have Perpetual .Adora- tion. The first is that of the Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament, founded by Pere Antoine, O.P. ; the second that of the Benedictine Adoratrices, founded first at Paris and af I erwan Is in several other cities, by the cele- brated Mother Meehtilde. This religious, .supported by powerful protectors, easily accomplished her task. Perpetual Adoration began among her daughters in 1654, while the Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament re- ceived the privilege of reserving the Blessed Sacra- ment only in 1659. But Pere .A.ntoine had begun the establishment of the Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament about 1639, while Mere Mechtilde's work appears, ac- cording to Helyot, to date back no further, even in project, than 1(351. Pere Antoine may, then, be con- sidered as possessing priority, especially as his order was intended solely for the worship of the Holy Eu- charist, while that of Mere Meehtilde, although in ex- istence, was adapted to that end only at a later pe- riod". Migne's " Dictionnaire des Ordres religieux" mentions no religious order exclusively destined for the worship of the Blessed Sacrament, except that of Pere Antoine, and that of the Adoration R^paratrice, established in France for the first time in 1848.

In 1639 Pere .\ntoine began his work at Marseilles. Sister Anne Negrel was named the first sunerioress. But the definitive establishment of the religious took place only in 1659-60, when Mgr de Puget, Bishop of Marseilles, 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), Innocent XI expedited a Brief, which could not be put in execution because of a change of bishop. Innocent XII issued a new Brief the same year in which the Apostolic Process was opened for the canonization of its founder. The only foundation of the order in the eighteenth century was made at Boll^ne (Vaucluse) in 1725. Sixty years later, under the government of M^re de La Fare, this monastery had the honour of offering to God thirteen victims, who succeedetl one another on the scaffold, from the fifth to the twenty-sixth of July, 1794. The process for the canonization of these martyrs was opened at Rome, January, 1907.

Mire de La Fare, having escaped the guillotine.