Our Foundress

 

Blessed Marie Eugenie

Anne-Eugenie Milleret was born in Metz, France in 1817. Belonging to an unbelieving family, she was converted at 18 years of age through the words of Lacordaire at the Cathedral of Notre Dame in Paris. Founding the RA at the age of 22, she was a woman of bold faith, open to the needs of her time, and oriented towards the future.

She dreamt of a profound transformation of society by means of evangelization thru education. The Religious of the Assumption, the Congregation which she founded, combines contemplation with education many varied sectors: schools, houses of prayer and of retreats, boarding homes for students, care of the chaplaincies of Lyceums, in developing countries, running of dispensaries, and sharing in the life of their brothers and sisters. The work of evangelization of the Religious of the Assumption extends worldwide: with the pygmies of the Cameroun, under the tents of Nigerian Touaregs, in the ruins of Managua, with the Indians of the Guatemalan mountains, in the slums of Brazil or among the country people of Argentina. In each of the thirty countries where they work, the meaning of their presence is the same: to unite with Marie Eugenie Milleret in the same contemplative love, to proclaim Jesus Christ as the only way of liberation, to collaborate towards the creation of the new tomorrow. They draw their apostolic dynamism from a fraternal life of prayer and sharing. They contemplate Mary, through whose person the glory of God breaks forth, in the mystery of the Assumption. Eugenie Milleret died on February 9, 1975. Anne-Eugenie Milleret was beatified and declared blessed in Rome by Pope Paul VI.