The rich heritage of Our Lady of the Cenacle

In the early part of the 19th century, the Church in France was beginning to take on new life after the disarray of the Revolution. When Marie Victoire Couderc (Saint Therese Couderc) was a young woman, her father brought her home from school to participate with her family in a mission to be given in Sablieres, in the South of France, near the small town where she was born. One of the missionaries was an energetic and zealous diocesan priest named Stephen Terme.

Marie Victoire was 20 years old and had a great desire to consecrate herself to God. She confided in Father Terme who offered her the opportunity to enter the novitiate in Aps in a community that ran Christian schools. She took the name of Therese.

Appointed to Lalouvesc in 1824, Father Terme noted that the promiscuity in the inns hardly encouraged the pilgrimage to the tomb of Saint Regis, especially for ladies. He then had the idea of opening a pilgrim’s house and retreat center for women only. In 1827, he called upon Therese and two other sisters to take charge of this new foundation.

In 1831, Father Terme consecrated the goods and the people of the community to the Sacred Heart by the hands of Mary. The retreat centers developed in spite of the lack of means.

Exhausted, Therese Couderc fell ill and had to go away to rest. On the feast of the Assumption of Mary, renewing the gesture of Father Terme, she handed over everything to Mary and resigned herself into Our Lady’s hands.

In 1844, a community was established in Lyons: Therese was appointed assistant. The congregation took the name of Our Lady of the Cenacle. Therese died on September 26, 1885 in the Cenacle in Lyons. She was beatified in 1951, then canonized in 1970. The village of Lalouvesc, place of pilgrimage to Saint Regis became also place of pilgrimage to Therese Couderc. Her feast is celebrated on September 26th.

On July 8, 1892, four Sisters sailed from Le Havre, France to carry the Mission of the Cenacle—to make Jesus known and loved—across the Atlantic Ocean. These valiant women arrived in New York eight days later with $200 in their pockets and their hearts full of zeal. The immigrant community settled at first with Dominican Nuns in the Bronx. Four months later, they started the Cenacle Mission in North America in a building they rented in Manhattan. On June 29, 1894, the Sisters purchased a house where the Mission of the Cenacle flourished and spread to other parts of North America.

Adapted from The Cenacle Sisters