Congregation of Divine Providence

Jean Martin Moye was a parish priest in the area of Lorraine, France. Concerned about the lack of educational opportunities for young women and girls, and the general ignorance in the region about the faith, Father Moye instructed several young women. On 14 January 1762, Moye sent out four literate women, under the leadership of Marguerite LeComte, whom he had recruited to teach in the remote hamlets of the region what was needed for the improvement of the peoples' lives, as well as the Catholic faith. These women were to live alone and without provisions, like the first Christians, sharing in the daily labor of the local populace and trusting in God's Divine Providence to provide for them.[2]

Though pious, the women lacked any formal knowledge of teaching. Moye trained them in child psychology, in order to prepare them to teach effectively and in a Christian manner, instructing all those whom they met. They were instructed to provide special help to the less gifted and to the poor who had become distasteful to others from the situations of their lives. This innovative ministry by single women quickly came under criticism by some for this irregular behavior. In their first year of operation, the association was suppressed by the religious authorities. They did not, however, close the schools opened by the women, which immediately began to expand.

Father Moye gave them the title “Poor Sisters of the Child Jesus”, but the villagers called them "Poor Sisters of Providence", which was given to the women by the villagers.[2]

Moye later traveled to China to do missionary work, then returned to France to administer the new congregation. Driven into exile during the French Revolution, in 1793 he succumbed to typhus contracted while nursing fellow refugees, and was beatified by Pope Pius XII in 1954. His feast day is celebrated on May 4.[2]

The French Revolution caused the closing of the schools of the congregation and scattered the Sisters. The loss of their founder and guide left the Sisters uncertain as to their future. When two priests returned from exile to Lorraine, they guided the surviving Sisters in re-forming the community. The German-speaking Sisters established a base in the town of Saint Jean de Bassel in 1827, opening schools throughout Moselle and Alsace. The French-speaking Sisters were headquartered in Portieux, serving the Department of Vosges. The two groups separated into separate congregations in 1852.

The Sisters of Providence of Portieux continue to serve in that region as a congregation of diocesan right.[3] In 1905, during the French Protectorate of Cambodia, these Sisters opened a mission in Battambang, where they operated a hospital and orphanage.

The Sisters began to establish an international presence in 1866, with a mission to the United States. In 1868 they sent a small group of Sisters to Algeria, who returned to France in 1871. During that period, they began to expand into new forms of service, opening a trade school for boys in Lixheim that same year, as well as ones to train girls in housekeeping. In 1879 Sisters began to serve in Belgium, and in 1889 a new mission was sent to the United States in Kentucky.[4]

During World War II, Alsace was again made part of Germany, and the Sisters faced the anti-Catholic regulations of the Nazi regime, under which their schools were closed. Many Sisters fled to the part of the region under the government of Vichy France until the end of the war. A few, however, stayed and operated clandestine private schools at great personal risk.[5]

After the war, a mission to Madagascar was established in 1950, in response to a request to staff a sanatorium there. The Sisters began to serve in the French Department of Mayotte in the Pacific region, their first presence in a Muslim country. They served there until 1988. They expanded to Ecuador in 1982.