The Company of Our Lady Mary
 |
|
| Abbreviation | O.D.N |
|---|---|
| Formation | 7 April 1607 |
| Type | Roman Catholic religious order |
| Location |
|
|
Superior General
|
Beatriz Acosta Mesa |
|
Key people
|
Jeanne de Lestonnac, foundress |
| Website | Lestonnac.org/inicials/index_en.php |
The Sisters of the Company of Mary, Our Lady are the members of a Roman Catholic religious order founded by Jeanne de Lestonnac (1556-1640) in France in 1607. The Order's mission is education, focused on the person in all their uniqueness. The members of the Order use the initials O.D.N. (Latin: Ordinis Dominae Nostrae) after their names.
De Lestonnac was born into a prominent family of Bordeaux in 1556. At the age of 17 she married and had eight children. She was widowed after 24 years of marriage. After a brief period as Cistercian nun, she envisioned the establishment of a new kind of religious community, whose essential task would availability to all those in need, most especially for the education of girls.
In 1605, during an outbreak of plague broke in Bordeaux, De Lestonnac helped care for the sick. A number of young women indicated a willingness to join her. During this period, she became acquainted with Ignatian spirituality through contact with several Jesuit priests. In 1607 the foundation gained the approval of Pope Paul V of a religious order dedicated to education, with the restrictions, however, of being organized along the Benedictine model, as an enclosed religious order of nuns, with each monastery to be independent. The community took the name of the Compagnie de Notre-Dame. They were the first female teaching congregation to gain official approval in France.
De Lestonnac and her followers received the religious habit of the new Order on 1 May 1608. The following year, the foundation received the approval of King Henry IV, allowing for expansion in the Kingdom of France. Five members of the new order completed their period of novitiate and took their religious vows on 10 December 1610, at which time the community established its first school for girls in Bordeaux.
...
Wikipedia