ORIGIN of ST. PAUL OF CHARTRES
In the small village of Levesville-la-Chenard in the diocese of Chartres, France, Father Louis Chauvet, the parish priest, founded the Daughters of the School in 1696, with the help of Mademoiselle Marie Anne de Tilly, who trained the first members: Mère Marie Micheau and Mère Barbe Foucault, to teach children and to care for the sick in their homes.
The growing institution was entrusted in 1708 to Bishop Paul Godet des Marais of Chartres , who gave it his name. The death of the founder on June 21, 1710 did not impede the Sisters of St. Paul of Chartres from spreading to different corners of the globe, to all the continents except Antarctica.
Responding to the appeal of Bishop Frederick Rooker, seven Sisters of St. Paul of Chartres, set sail from Saigon and arrived in Dumaguete, southern Philippines on October 29, 1904.
The good Bishop counted on them to nurture the faith of the predominantly Catholic population recently freed from 377 years of Spanish rule but which was then prey to the intense proselytizing campaign of American Protestants as well as to the patriotic influences of the Philippine Independent Church.
Starting their missionary work under extreme conditions of poverty and enormous cultural difficulties, they nevertheless proved to be excellent nurses and educators that other Bishops requested for them in other dioceses. The first Sisters of St. Paul of Chartres in the Philippines opened the first Paulinian School in Dumaguete, Negros Oriental in 1904. In ten years, they have rapidly established 4 Schools and 3 Hospitals including the leper colony in the island of Culion. Within the same period,
God blessed them with numerous vocations and a Novitiate was opened in 1913. By 1914, the SPC mission in the Philippines was granted status as a Province.
The first Novitiate in Malate, Manila, opened in 1911, was transferred to Quezon City in 1931. The First Filipina Provincial Superior, Mother Madeleine Denoga was appointed in 1965. The present Provincial Superior is Sr. Zeta Caridad Rivero.
As educators, 249 Sisters serve more than 59,000 students in 35 schools; 85 Sisters in the Health Ministry serve 63,000 patients in 11 medical institutions; 59 Sisters are full-time pastoral workers, catechizing 78,000 children and adults, caring for street children, lepers, minority tribes,
and the poor in the rural and urban areas; and the 91 retired Sisters support the active Sisters spiritually by their prayers and the offering of their pains. 62 Filipina Sisters are missionaries in 13 foreign countries.
In October 2003, the Province has launched the opening of the year-long Centennial Celebration with the unveiling of the marker depicting the seven Sisters’ arrival in Dumaguete.
The year 2004 marks the Congregation’s 100th year of presence and service to the Filipino people. Today, they have 55 houses in 29 dioceses and one house in Bethlehem, Israel.
