Marist Sisters
MARIST SISTERS
Popular name for the Sisters of the Congregation of Mary (SM, Official Catholic Directory #2430), a religious congregation founded in 1817 in Cerdon (Ain), France, by Jean Claude colin and Jeanne Marie Chavoin (Mother St. Joseph), who acted as superior general (1824–53). The Holy See approved the institute in 1884 and the revised constitutions in 1958. The sisters engage mainly in educational and catechetical work, pastoral ministry, counseling, youth ministry and social outreach. The sisters arrived in the United States in 1956, opening a school in Dearborn, Mich. The generalate is in Rome; the U.S. provincialate is in Abilene, TX.
Bibliography: l. de rouvray, Origines et histoire des religieuses Maristes (Paris 1951). e. leonard, Enriching Many: Jeanne-Marie Chavoin (London 1956).
[s. w. hosie/eds.]