Two hundred years before the dogma of the Immaculate Conception

Despite her initial desire to enter the convent, after she met Saint Vincent de Paul, Saint Louise de Marillac (1591-1660) devoted her life to organizing charity work. She first helped direct Saint Vincent’s Ladies of Charity, then she founded the Society of the Daughters of Charity.

With Saint Vincent de Paul, Louise de Marillac gave the Daughters of Charity a fully Marian spirituality. She wrote: “All truly Christian souls must have a great love for the Blessed Virgin and honor her greatly for the fact that she is the Mother of God, and for the virtues that God gave her toward this end.” (Autobiography, M 33)

She consecrated the Society to the Blessed Virgin in Chartres, where she went on a pilgrimage in October 1644. She chose two Marian days as the main feasts for her order: March 25th (feast of the Annunciation), when the sisters would renew their vows, and December 8th (feast of the Immaculate Conception, which wasn’t universally recognized then. The dogma was only proclaimed on December 8, 1854, after the apparitions of the Rue du Bac in Paris, at a convent of the Daughters of Charity, shortly before the apparitions of Lourdes), when the sisters would renew their consecration to Mary.

Louise used to have her religious say the following prayer: “Most Holy Virgin, I believe and confess your holy and immaculate Conception.”

Michèle Rivière de Précourt

President of the French Federation of the Saint-Vincent Teams from 2013-2016

Notre Histoire avec Marie