The Sisters of Charity of Ottawa have long been known as the Grey Nuns of the Cross. To tell the story of their foundation is to paint in fiery colours a huge fresco into which are woven the names of many Oblates of Mary Immaculate, each one of whom appears more valiant the other. Although sprung from different and totally independent roots, the two Congregations share a spiritual patrimony, which destined them to work together in their mission to the poor. Bytown “the Babylon of Ottawa” was to be the first scene of their common dedication.
Let us go back to the middle of the nineteenth century, to the time when our two Congregations entered as youthful hopefuls in this young city. Since 1841 the Oblates of Mary Immaculate had been labouring on Canadian soil. In January 1844, an Oblate named Pierre Adrien Telmon had been assigned to the pastoral care of Bytown, a rough area of building sites. Bishop Patrick Phelan of Kingston had previously held this position. He was aware of its multiple and urgent needs. Consequently, when Father Telmon told him of his parish problems, the worthy prelate had no hesitation in transmitting to him the suggestion he had received from Bishop Ignace Bourget of Montreal, which was to call upon the assistance of the Grey Nuns of Montreal. This Canadian religious Congregation was entirely devoted to the poor and had been founded 1837 by Saint Marguerite d’Youville. A seed had been planted and was about to grow and flourish.
Father Telmon did not delay in approaching the authorities of the Grey Nuns. The favourable reception given to his first approach encouraged him to make a more specific request. His first approach was to ask for two Sisters for the school in Bytown while hoping to make other requests for the other works that corresponded to the aims of the Congregation. Some days later, Bishop Phelan enhanced this request by adding his signature to the official petition prepared by Bishop Bourget and addressed to Mother McMullan, Superior General of the Grey Sisters of Montreal. Faced with the distressful situation presented and the insistence of the clergy, the community decided to sacrifice some of its precious members.
It was then that a new Congregation came into being, the Sisters of Charity of Bytown. On February 20, 1845, four Grey Sisters of Montreal set foot in Bytown. As was customary for communities at that time, the new branch was considered to be autonomous. The superior and foundress, Sister Élisabeth Bruyère, had all the necessary faculties for her new apostolate. Born on March 19, 1818 in the little village of Assumption in the province of Quebec, she had spent some years teaching young girls. Although teaching was her vocation, she chose to join a Congregation dedicated to the service of the poor and she entered the Grey Nuns of Montreal at the age of twenty-one years. She was put in charge of the classroom of orphans. Four years later, Sister Bruyère received an obedience from the authorities for the new mission of Bytown. It was with complete trust in divine Providence that she left her beloved mission of Montreal.
Father Telmon may have received “readymade” Sisters but he certainly bestowed his paternal care on them in keeping with the promises made to Mother McMullan to whom he had written on October 28, 1844: “There is nothing that I would be unwilling to do myself, even to leaving the presbytery, if I can find nothing better for them. Whatever may I happen, I shall not allow them to suffer. I am prepared to fast in order that they can eat.” On that February 20, 1846 he was overcome with joy as he presented “his” Sisters to the parishioners. Far from diminishing his zeal, this new help seemed to provide a further stimulus. Mother Élisabeth Bruyère, the young superior foundress, showed her concern about the overwhelming activity of the missionary. He was up early and went to bed towards midnight. He breakfasted late and was on the move throughout the day, always on foot, in the interests of the church and of the convent. Soon the inevitable happened; Father Telmon became dangerously ill and his life was in danger. Alarmed and overcome with worry, the Sisters cared for him so devotedly that he recovered. This incident was the occasion of a pleasant exchange of letters between Bishop de Mazenod and Mother Bruyère in which they shared their common concern and thanksgiving. Deeply concerned about the excessive workload of the good Father, the venerable Founder of the Oblates of Mary Immaculate begged the Sisters, in his letter of July 30, 1846, to insist that there be moderation. “My dear Sisters, you must be the bearers of my words to him, constantly resounding in his ears. Insist that he is not obliged to do more than he is reasonably able to do. Tell him that I forbid him to compromise his life, and that he must proceed at a moderate and reasonable pace, to which his conscience also obliges him.”
This time at least there was reason to rejoice because his health was restored. As an acknowledgement of the Sisters’ role, the bishop of Marseilles presented Mother Bruyère with a beautiful gilded statue of Saint Joseph destined for a place of honour in their chapel. As a sign of salvation the beautiful statue reached the banks of the Bytown River during the terrible typhus epidemic of 1847. As for the moderating mission with which the Sisters had been entrusted, it did not last long; in August 1848, obedience called Father Telmon to Longueuil and thus the Sisters were deprived of their first superior, the person who had invited them to Bytown.
Providence did not leave his children long without a spiritual father. Bishop Joseph Eugène Bruno Guigues, o.m.i., bishop of the new diocese of Bytown took over the young religious family. His paternal, wise and enlightened approach elicited the trust and veneration of the Sisters. This noble prelate was soon to be invested with more extensive authority over our community. In 1854, the independence of all the foundations of the Grey Sisters outside of Montreal was ratified by the mother community. The bishop became entirely responsible for Grey Sisters established in his diocese. His first duty was to fill a void that was becoming increasingly trying for the Sisters: the absence of a Rule in keeping with the needs of their new milieu. The Rule they had brought from Montreal concerned their work with the poor but made no mention of the aspect of teaching. It was necessary to revise that text and provide a new Rule. The venerable pastor entrusted this serious and delicate task to Father Pierre Aubert, who had been superior of the Oblates in Bytown since 1850. He undertook and pursued this task with remarkable respect and wisdom which will remain forever remembered as noted in the minutes of the general council of August 17, 1857: “Since he did not wish to innovate anything and he wanted the Rule to be the work of the Sisters rather than his own, as he finished some chapters he would send them to the Reverend Mother Superior who, together with some of the older Sisters, examined them and when these chapters had been scrutinized, Father Aubert went to the convent, listened graciously to the observations made to him and corrected his work. If he believed there was no need to make the changes suggested, he gave the reasons, but he never wrote anything that did not have the approval of the council chosen by Mother Superior.” All that Bishop Guigues had to do was approve the work. With the coming into effect of this Rule, the community took on its new identity of the Sisters of Charity of Ottawa.
The growing vitality of this new foundation brought the urgent need for spreading to new frontiers. Here again, the Oblates, missionaries by vocation, opened up new horizons on Canadian soil and even abroad. So it was that, on the invitation of one or other pioneer such as Fathers Garin and Chevalier, the Sisters opened houses in Buffalo, New York, in 1857, and in Plattsburgh in 1860. Father Pian received them in the faraway wilderness of Temiscamingue in 1866. Closer to the capital, Hull was to receive them in 1869 together with Fathers Durocher, Reboul and Charpeney. Then, Maniwaki in 1870 with Father Déléage.
The Congregation had been founded with a very wide-ranging perspective of missionary activity and recognized the vital need to be under the direction of priests who combined religious with missionary activity. The life style of the Oblates responded to those aspirations at the deepest level. Besides, Mother Bruyère had already lived an enriching experience during fifteen years and she wanted her daughters to have the spiritual guidance of the Oblates. When she learned that a formal contract had assured that advantage to the Sisters of the Holy Family of Bordeaux, she envisaged the possibility of an affiliation to that Congregation in 1861. She expressed her hopes to Bishop de Mazenod who encouraged her to continue negotiations in that direction. Mother Bruyère was very grateful to the bishop when he accepted to count the Sisters among his daughters. With that in mind she would not have to worry about her own death since she could rest assured that the Sisters would be cared for by virtuous and enlightened religious. However, there was an obstacle to this plan. Mother Bruyère noted it in the minutes of the general council held on February 13, 1862. “ … in order to benefit from the advantages of their union, the Grey Nuns of Ottawa would have to be assimilated into a branch of their (the Holy Family) Congregation, which meant adopting their rules and customs: that without exception, apart from the elderly Sisters, new members would have to be formed by the Ladies of the Holy Family themselves”. Neither Mother Bruyère nor Bishop Guigues could accept that condition.
Mother Élisabeth Bruyère retained her position as superior general for thirty-one years, that is, until her death. When she died in 1876 she bequeathed to the Church a Congregation, which now had 23 active houses, and 198 living professed Sisters. Parish schools, boarding schools, hospitals, dispensaries, orphanages and homes for the aged had the benefit of the Sisters’ dedication. Numerical increase and the multiplication of works took place rapidly. During the years of development, there were two successive breakaways of English speaking Sisters that diminished the membership by more than two hundred. The first was in 1921 and the second in 1926. Providence continued to be gracious however, and in 1931 the Sisters were able to respond to an invitation from the Oblates to make a foundation in Lesotho, where they still continue the works of mercy proper to our charism. Because of rapid and sustained recruitment the Congregation increased in numbers and reached a climax in 1965 with 1,876 religious with 142 houses of which 34 in mission territories. Apart from their presence in Lesotho, they are also in Malawi, Zambia, Brazil, Japan and Haiti. Besides, local conditions required their presence for a ten-year period between 1992 and 2004, in Papua New Guinea. Today we must add the missionary fields of Cameroon and Thailand to those already mentioned. There are 706 Sisters of whom 167 are natives of mission countries and they are working in the vineyard of the Lord in 87 houses of which 42 in mission territories.
The ardent desire of Mother Bruyère to keep her daughters under the direction of the Oblates has providentially continued through the years. From the time of the foundation until 2002, that is one hundred and two years, the Oblates of Mary Immaculate have been chaplains to the motherhouse in Ottawa, daily breaking the spiritual bread and providing the fraternal support that are essential to the apostolic religious life.
Above and beyond the ministry of chaplaincy a new sphere of activity required the dedication of the Oblate Fathers in 1978. Two years previously the Congregation had celebrated the centenary of Mother Élisabeth Bruyère’s death. When he became aware of the extraordinary life of this woman, the Apostolic Delegate in Canada, Archbishop Angelo Palmas, declared: “Mother Bruyère must be canonized!” That exclamation aroused a legitimate dream that had been in everybody’s mind for some time. The process quickly got under way and the Oblates joined in with enthusiasm. The official request for the introduction of the cause for beatification and canonization of Mother Bruyère was introduced in Rome and signed on February 20, 1978 by Archbishop Joseph Aurèle Plourde of Ottawa and by Father Angelo Mitri, o.m.i., postulator of the cause. After the untimely death of the latter Father James Fitzpatrick and then Father Frank Santucci took over as postulators. They were ably assisted by Father William Woestman as vice-postulator and Father Yvon Beaudoin as relator. In the same context we have two consultant historians: Fathers Jacques Gervais and Robert Michel ,while Father Véronneau was, until his death, involved in the diocesan process.
The names mentioned in these pages are only a tiny group of the persons to whom we are indebted. It would be impossible to give a balanced account of the long list of services provided for the Congregation by the Oblates of Mary Immaculate since the time of our foundation. Since we do not, humanly speaking, have the means to do so, we share in Mother Bruyère’s thanksgiving to these dedicated missionaries who have worked for the benefit of every Sister and the edification of the whole Congregation and we entrust to the Lord the care of repaying our immense debt to the sons of Saint Eugene de Mazenod.
Huguette Bordeleau, s.c.o.
