Sisters of Charity of the Incarnate Word

The Congregation of the Sisters of Charity of the Incarnate Word is the name of two Roman Catholic religious institutes based in the U.S. state of Texas. They use the abbreviation C.C.V.I. (Latin: Congregatio Caritatis Verbi Incarnati).

The Congregation of the Sisters of Charity of the Incarnate Word, Houston is a religious institute of women begun in 1866, at the request of French-born Claude Marie Dubuis, the second Catholic bishop of the Diocese of Galveston, which then included the entire state of Texas. Texas was suffering from the ravages of the Civil War, coupled with the tragedy of a rapidly spreading cholera epidemic. In 1866, Dubuis contacted his friend Mother Angelique Hiver, Superioress of the Order of the Incarnate Word and Blessed Sacrament in Lyons, France. The Sisters could not fulfill his request since the Order was cloistered and was committed to the ministry of education. Bishop Duibuis then applied for the admission of three young women who had volunteered. They were received into the monastery for the purpose of receiving formation and the rule of the Order, with the understanding that a new order was being formed. For a long time, the Lyons community continued to direct and support the Sisters of Charity of the Incarnate Word, as the new community came to be known.

Sisters Mary Blandine, Mary Joseph and Mary Ange arrived in Galveston, Texas, and started Charity Hospital, the first Catholic hospital in Texas. This would later become St. Mary's Infirmary & St. Mary's Hospital. Later, as a result of the yellow fever epidemic that struck Galveston, the St. Mary's Orphanage was started, first in the hospital, and was later moved just outside town, away from the epidemic. This epidemic also struck two of the sisters: Mother Mary Blandine would die of yellow fever on August 18, 1867; Sister Mary Ange also contracted yellow fever but recovered and returned to France. In 1867 and 1868 other sisters, educated and professed in the same convent at Lyons, came to offer their assistance.

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