The History of Our Founding

Our History

The official foundation of the Little Sisters of the Lamb dates back to 1981, and that of the Little Brothers of the Lamb to 1990, but there is naturally a “pre-history,” at their source which sheds light on the rest. We must go back to 1968 and the ensuing years.

Paris 1968

At the start, we little sisters were part of the Roman Congregation of Saint Dominic, living in the neighborhood “de l’Odéon” in Paris’ Latin Quarter. There, we found ourselves caught in the midst of what would be called the “cultural revolution,” a violent storm that swept through leaving chaos and disorder in its wake. Marx and Hegel had become the leading thinkers of the time.  Ecclesial communities too were being affected, and a large number of priests and religious left the priesthood and consecrated life. In our small community, which also housed boarding school students, a few cobblestones thrown from the streets by protestors even landed on our terrace, but none of that could separate us from the love of Jesus which was growing in our hearts. The fraternal charity we were experiencing in community, and the breath of the Holy Spirit were stronger. We put a sign in the window of our chapel for any passerby to read: “Chapel open to the public.”

Students from the universities began to join us. I personally had the great privilege of studying the Church Fathers at the Sorbonne with a group of Catholic professors who were standing firm amidst the storm, unshaken, even by the fiercest gusts of wind. One day in a lecture hall, a student shouted, “Who lost this?” I recognized my rosary. I was wearing my Dominican habit at the time, and I identified myself as the owner of the rosary, which was then returned to me. From that day on, a good number of students found their way to our community.

The group that came to celebrate the liturgy was growing. Together we drew from the theological wellsprings of both the East and the West, contemplated at length the icons of the Trinity, of the Virgin Mary, and of Christ, studied the Summa of Saint Thomas Aquinas, and above all, the Gospel.

Returning to the Sources

Some young Dominican friars who found themselves in the same situation joined us. As young patrologists themselves, they loved the Church, Jesus Christ, and His Gospel. “They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers” (Acts of the Apostles 2:42). And one verse kept coming up for us in prayer:

“I bless you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that you have hidden these things from the wise and understanding and revealed them to little ones.” (Matthew 11:25)

As “little ones,” we had to abandon ourselves to this blessing of Jesus and allow ourselves to be led by the inspiration of the Spirit of praise and consolation, into the intimacy of Trinitarian Life. And we sang endlessly of the holy and life-giving Trinity:

In the Light of the Gospel

Imitating our father Saint Dominic, who himself had learned this practice from the monk Saint Jean Cassian, we would meditate upon the Word of God in light of the Church Fathers. We would learn the Gospel by heart, with our hearts, and, as the Scriptures say, we would “eat” the Word, we would manducate it. One need only read what was said to the prophet Ezekiel: “Eat the book” (cf. Ezekiel 3:1,) and to Saint John, in the Book of Revelation, the term used is even more precise: “Devour the book” (cf. Revelations 10:9).

Every day, in the light of the Gospel, we would ask ourselves these questions—and we still do today: “Who is God? Who is man?” Who better than Jesus Christ and the Holy Gospel to respond? Thus life, true life, life that spurs to love, life-giving life, sprang forth from our hearts, secretly triumphing over the prevailing nihilism of the day. Jesus, gentle and lowly in heart, was leading us down a path of peace which no momentary violence could diminish. Thus our life was daily becoming more and more Marian. We had the custom of saying the Rosary, a devotion which was particularly dear to Saint Dominic, but it was manducating the Gospel which, more than anything, united us with the Virgin Mary as she is described in the Gospel: “She kept all these things, pondering them in her heart” (cf. Luke 2:19). Our little group of students, academics, and Dominican friars remained gathered around the Virgin Mary. We were granted a renewed fervor in prayer, and the bonds of friendship were being deepened through contemplation of the Mystery of God.

Just when we had no more wine, the “good wine,” the best of all, was being offered to us for free. The grain of wheat fallen to the ground had died, and the ideologists were proclaiming their victory, but what they did not know was that the grain of wheat that falls to the ground, if it dies, bears much fruit (cf. John 12:24).

In the Heart of the Church

In fact, the life of the Holy Spirit was also stirring up other groups and giving birth to new communities; a true springtime was dawning in the Church. The Spirit of God had blown upon the embers of a fire which had appeared to be dying out, and a new fire had secretly been enkindled in the hearts of all believers. These hearts held the light that darkness cannot overcome (cf. John 1:5). A divine and holy anointing had come to heal our wounds. Jesus was, and is indeed, our Savior and Lord; He has given us His Spirit, and The Church is our Mother and Home.

The revolution of May 1968 apparently sought to sweep away everything in its path, but it had already been preceded in the heart of the Church by the Second Vatican Council, a true revolution established on the love of God and of all our brethren in humanity. Just a short time prior, the Council had given the world a Church renewed by the Spirit of the Lord. The liturgy of the Council was enabling us to live according to the rhythm of God’s heart and His love for mankind. And the Gospel, kept in our hearts with Mary, lived out in the love of God and neighbor, as nourishment for our prayer, acted as a force of resistance that triumphed over all disorder and every evil. In the heart of the Church, the civilization of Love is born, “Many waters cannot quench it, nor can floods drown it” (cf. Song of Songs 8:7).

Saint Dominic and Dominic, the Poor Child in the Night

Spending many nights in adoration and prayer, we would make the cry of our father Saint Dominic our own: “My Mercy, what will become of sinners?” and we would add: “of whom we are the first.” In his prayer, Saint Dominic would also endlessly say: “It is I who have sinned!”

“My Mercy, what will become of sinners?” This cry of our father Saint Dominic would resound throughout many nights spent in prayer and would continue to consume his heart during the day. It is the cry of supplication that he had discerned in the heart of the Trinity itself: God, the Father, friend of mankind, turns towards the Son and calls out to him: “You who are my Mercy (the perfect expression of my merciful love), what will become of sinners?” And the Son replies, as the Scriptures tell us:

“Behold, I have come! Here am I, send me!” (cf. Psalms 40:8; Hebrews 10:7)

But of course, the demands of the student residence along with offering hospitality to the poor could not be met much longer. Our grounds could not accommodate both, and some families were concerned. We entrusted everything to the Lord and invoked the Holy Spirit. Thus, through fraternal and prayerful dialogue, the next step began to take shape.

This first encounter with the poor, which was confrontational, so to speak, but also genuine and amiable, this initiation into the battle against evil and death, amidst the darkness of night,  was leading us to a second call: a call to conversion, to faith, to believe in the Gospel, to union with Jesus in his Passion and his Cross, victorious over all evil and over even death itself. We simply had to remain standing, in prayer, at the foot of Jesus’ Cross.

Vézelay, France 1974

In August 1974, we spent some time in retreat at the foot of the hill of Vézelay, in a small Franciscan hermitage called La Cordelle. In 1217, this very place had been home for some of the first companions of Francis of Assisi, including Brother Pacificus; he had gone there to live and preach the Gospel. And now, so many years later, their Franciscan brothers were welcoming us nine Little Dominican Sisters from Paris. We wanted to listen to God’s Word in that place of silence and light where the Gospel had grown such deep roots. The retreat was being preached by Brother Jean-Claude, a Franciscan, and it proved to be a decisive encounter. We discovered that this brother of Saint Francis was inhabited by these same desires: prayer, a passion for the Gospel, and the desire to be united with Jesus, convinced as he was of the need to proclaim, like Jesus, the Good News to the poor.

Poor and Beggars

There is a beautiful story told of Francis and Dominic, who one day, upon meeting each other, embraced. Francis and Dominic were both poor ones of Christ, beggars. No one has forgotten that Francis espoused “Lady Poverty”; indeed, everyone remembers him as the “poverello.” But how many realize that Dominic too imitated the poverty of the Poor Christ? Now, the grace of their meeting had reached all the way down to us, too. Our story would henceforth find its place within the context of that friendship which united our fathers Saint Dominic and Saint Francis.

During that time of retreat, one prayer intention was coming up repeatedly, summarizing all the rest: “Grant us, Lord, the gift of the impossible poverty of your Gospel!” At the end of the retreat, that was all we had. We had not invented even the slightest human means to better live out the Gospel in the footsteps of Saint Dominic, no collective reflection had been synthesized, and no project had been planned, but we had an immense hope, and we had been renewed in the giving of our lives. As for the rest, God would provide

A Sign “As Big as a House”

The time came for us to part ways, with each sister leaving for her annual retreat in solitude, but two of us little sisters stayed a few hours longer. Within that time, a tiny little event transpired. A Franciscan brother, glad to see us two little sisters, uttered what almost seemed like a joke: “If you want to live in poverty, you know there’s a small house in the village that some people would lend you for a few months!”

Back in Paris, the whole community saw this proposition of a little house in Vézelay as a sign and an answer to our prayer. We had to go. The college students also recognized it as a sign from God. Indeed, we saw the Lord at work, for His signs are often very small, and they lead us out into the unknown. It seemed to bear his signature.

“Leave your country, your family, and your relatives, and go to the land that I will show you” (Genesis 12:1). “Go, sell what you have and give it to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven” (Mark 10:21). Yes, the time had come to once again leave everything behind, the university, Paris, and even the poor, to follow Jesus and Jesus alone, poor and crucified. To go out “into the wilderness,” and then to let oneself be sent out again only in God’s time.

An older sister and I were sent to Vézelay. Sister Jean-Paul, O.P., the provincial at the time, confirmed this mission by a prophetic word. She said: “To know if something comes from the Holy Spirit, you have to live it!” And so, we left “without gold or silver” to live in prayer and poverty.

In early November 1974, Vézelay greeted us, with its Basilica, filled every morning as it was with the light of the Savior, “the rising sun that comes to visit us” (cf. Luke 1:78), and inhabited with the presence of Saint Mary Magdalene to whom it is dedicated. We asked her to intercede for all those we had met in the night, and we began to learn from her how to “sit at the Lord’s feet” listening to the Word (cf. Luke 10:39), along with Mary, the Mother of Jesus, who “kept all these things in her heart.”

All Saints’ Day 1974

Being in Vézelay also meant reuniting with Brother Jean-Claude. The Lord had given him to us at first as a spiritual father, so that he might later help found the Community of the Lamb. Father Christoph Schönborn and Brother Jean-Claude themselves remember those early days in Vézelay. Brother Jean-Claude recounts: “All Saints’ Day, 1974, Vézelay, in that little house, poor as it was. There, Father Christoph entrusted Little Sister Marie and Little Sister Réginald with the Lord’s Eucharistic presence. We didn’t know it then, but that was the beginning of the Community of the Lamb. In the days leading up to this event, another brother – the parish priest of Vézelay – and I, had been getting the house ready. Our history was already there in embryo … it’s important to preserve this memory, so as not to forget one bit of God’s gift.” “It is the Lord!” (John 21:7) From the first day on, the place belonged to Jesus; He was the only Master, the Friend, the Spouse – the Lamb. When Father Christoph reserved the Blessed Sacrament in the house, this constituted the starting point, the foundation, the base, the initial seed, and the sole point of reference from that time forward.

“I no longer call you servants, but friends” (John 15:15). Yes, it was friendship that brought us together: Marie and her sisters, Father Christoph, the two Franciscans… and we have yet to discover all the wonders contained in this “love one another as I have loved you ” (cf. John 13:34) which was so clearly manifested from the start.

“It was a house of prayer there in the heart of the village, far from the big city, but there amongst the people. People called it the Hermitage of Saint Dominic – and in fact, Little Sister Marie ended up living there alone for nine months. It was a place of retreat and solitude, dedicated to praise and intercession, solitary prayer, and the liturgy which quickly took on great importance, to study, and to the keeping and passing on of the Word of God.

“Blessed are the poor” (Matthew 5:3). The home itself was quite poor, which, on its own, reflected the first Beatitude. Together we would pray: “Lord, grant us the gift of the impossible poverty of your Gospel!” A little later, begging and itinerancy would inevitably emerge out of this mystery of evangelical poverty.

“I am still amazed,” says Father Christoph, “that I had the special privilege of witnessing those first hours, when, accompanying you to Vézelay, I celebrated that first Mass and left little sisters Réginald and Marie with the Presence of Jesus so as to adore Him in that very poor little house, which was just the kind that our father Saint Dominic would have liked. The Gospel of that day was the Beatitudes (Matthew 5:1-12). Of course, my sermon, as all would recall, echoed those words. It was November 1, 1974, All Saints’ Day. I remember something my mother said – she was with me that day – as we left the two little sisters who were to “remain” there with Jesus. She said, “You’re really going to leave them… in such poverty?!” But I believed, as did they, that in this they were truly “blessed” … Yes, they were blessed with that joy that no one can take away, which comes when one realizes it is possible to leave everything for Jesus, and when the Lord accomplishes this in our lives.”

Nine Months at the “Hermitage”

Little Sisters Marie and Réginald stayed two months together in Vézelay before the community in Paris called in need of help and asked for Little Sister Réginald to return. Thus, for little sister Marie, the time of “Saint Dominic’s Hermitage” had come. It was a period of prayer in solitude, but also the welcoming of students and the poor in large numbers. It was a time during which the Lamb was calling us to follow him.

Returning to the Sources in Light of Vatican II

At this same time, I was asked to study the Latin texts which expressed the charism of the Order of Preachers in its most primitive form. We were thus invited to return “to the sources of the founders,” as requested by the Second Vatican Council. And it was an overwhelming grace for us to experience the congruence between our recent experience of abandonment to Providence and what the texts themselves revealed.

The charism of Saint Dominic came to be revealed, encapsulated in this striking summary: to preach the Gospel by being made one with the Suffering Servant, namely, to “imitate the poverty of the poor Christ,” and to become a beggar in daily life so as to reveal the begging Love of God, who goes so far as to offer himself in sacrifice. In short, to become a beggar in order to reveal to the world the Lamb of God: “Behold the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world” (John 1:29), that is, all the evil of the world.

These texts told of the experience of our father Saint Dominic, praying in the night. He would contemplate the passion of our Lord Jesus Christ, looking upon His pierced heart, which reveals the Father’s begging love, as He awaits the lost sheep being sought by the Son, the Son who is the Envoy of Mercy. Hour by hour, this light of begging Love transfigured our father Saint Dominic into the image of the Suffering Servant whose traits he himself took on. Poor and begging, he would go out to all places to preach the poor and despised Christ.

By this series of small events, God in his Providence was leading us to follow Jesus in the footsteps of Saint Dominic. By meditating upon these texts, God’s daily gifts to us were being brought to light, and this was transformed into an act of pure thanksgiving. All that we had just experienced became clear. The evangelical life as Dominic had desired had been given to us: simple, and with the fresh savor of water flowing from a spring, from “the source” – living water.

And as always, these gifts of God had been written into the context of our humble daily lives.

A Community in the Heart of the Church: 1981-1983

Soon other sisters, then young people, joined the first three Little Sisters, and in 1979, another fraternity was begun in Chartres in addition to the one in Vézelay. The Mother General of our Congregation called me to say, “What you carry in your heart is something new, and you must have the courage to found.” This was indeed the birth of a new community in the Dominican family. But it had to be founded in the Church. On December 17, 1981, Bishop Michel Kuehn of Chartres officially recognized the community’s foundation, but Providence showed us that Chartres would not be the place where we could definitively put down roots.

So, there we were, once again, searching. Where would this small, fledgling flock find its pasture? We decided to ask the Blessed Virgin Mary. Thus, little sister Marie-Noëlle and I set out as pilgrims journeying to Lourdes in order to beg the Virgin Mary for another city and diocese in which we could “pitch our tent,” and for a bishop who too might be “a father, a brother, and a friend.”

A few days later, we arrived in the city on the feast day of Our Lady of Lourdes, February 11, 1982. We were hurrying towards the grotto when suddenly we heard a car honking. An old friend who lived in the area got out of the car and exclaimed, “What are you doing here?!” We briefly explained. “I know the bishop you’re looking for” he said. “You’re the reason that I came to Lourdes today! This morning, I was literally pushed to get behind the wheel, and as I drove my heart kept telling me: ‘Father Jean in Lourdes!’ That’s it! Father Jean Chabbert O.F.M., the Archbishop of Rabat in Morocco, is the bishop for you!”

We had in fact met Father Jean a year prior at the Eucharistic Congress in Lourdes. We had spoken enthusiastically with him, out of the abundance of our hearts, about everything we were experiencing. But Morocco! For a foundation in the Church! It was unimaginable for us at such an early stage. Our friend, however, was aware that Father Jean Chabbert was due to return to France. He suggested that we call him at the diocesan chancery in Rabat. Today, right now! He said. If Father Jean himself answers the phone that will be a sign. So, we called. Father Jean was indeed on the other end of the line and yes, he agreed to welcome our little community in his new diocese upon his return to France.

Later on, recalling that date of February 11, 1982, Father Jean confided that he had asked the Virgin Mary for the grace, in prayer, to spend that entire day at the grotto of Lourdes. A few months later, his new appointment became official: Archbishop Jean Chabbert was sent to Perpignan, France.

And so, twelve of us Little Sisters arrived in Perpignan on January 28, 1983, the feast of Saint Thomas Aquinas. We found a house at number 33 Rue Joseph-Denis, in the neighborhood of Saint-Jacques, a poor neighborhood populated by Gypsy and North-African families, only a stone’s throw from the bishop’s residence. In addition to us little sisters, there were two “aspirants” present in Perpignan who unofficially took part in this foundation, and who would eventually become the first two Little Brothers of the Lamb.

On February 6, 1983, Archbishop Jean Chabbert of Perpignan, granted recognition to the Community of the Lamb in the Church. On July 16 of that same year, on the feast of Our Lady of Mount Carmel, Father Vincent de Couesnongle O.P., then Master of the Order of Preachers, officially recognized the Community as being “a new branch on the tree of the Order of Preachers.” He wrote to us: “Since we love to share these riches among brothers and sisters, I declare that from now on you are to share in the merits of the Order, which has already been enriched, like for Saint Dominic in the time of Prouilhe, by your prayer and the witness of your lives. It is precisely in this communion that, under the gaze of Our Lady of Contemplation, I bless you in the name of Saint Dominic.”

On August 8, 1990, the feast day of Saint Dominic, it was again Father Jean who officially received the Little Brothers of the Lamb on behalf of the Church. Then, on November 22, 1999, Brother Timothy Radcliffe, O.P., Master of the Order, recognized the Little Brothers as being “part of the Dominican family.” His successor, Brother Carlos Aspiroz, O.P., would two years later confirm this reception.

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[1] Cf. Early texts of the Dominican order, and in particular the Pontifical Bulls that confirm the Order.

[2] Historians can demonstrate nowadays the importance that St Dominic gave to it in the establishment of his own charism.

[3] This is the term we use to indicate those who come closer to a religious community in order to discern their vocation.