Sisters of Our Lady of the Apostles

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The Sisters of Notre Dame of the Apostles ( French : Sœurs missionnaires de Notre-Dame des Apôtres, abbreviation : NDA) are a congregation in the Roman Catholic Church . They were founded in 1876 by Father Augustin Planque , the first superior general of the Society of Africa Missions . The primary goal of the Missionary Sisters is the evangelization of Africa .

history

Sisters in Niger , around 1920.

The first meeting of the sisters was in Lyon in 1876 , where the first General House was built. The mother house took three years to build and was completed in 1881. The nuns built a convent school attached to the mother house. In addition to the regular school, it was also an educational institution for prospective missionaries who were supposed to work in Africa. With the separation of religion and state , the school was deprived of the right to teach, and the school building became a monastery and novitiate .

During the First World War , the community decided to give the house to the Lyon Civil Hospital and the French Red Cross for use. The expansion of the house began later in 1930, and it now had rooms and living quarters so that the growing number of missionaries and sisters could be accommodated.

During the Second World War , the house and monastery were also badly damaged by bombing . Repair work and partial reconstruction could only begin in 1945. Hospital service and care of the sick were intensified by 1971, and the convent and parish church in Lyon became the focus of pastoral care and Christian schooling. After 1971 the congregation had to cope with a sharp decline, fewer mission candidates came forward and the mother house could no longer be financially managed. Finally, in 2004, the monastery was closed and the general and mother house moved to Rome.

Organization and mission areas

The order currently has 850 sisters from 18 countries. New members of the Order come mainly from Africa: of the 74 sisters who recently took temporary vows, 66 are African women. The sisters work in a total of 7 English- and French-speaking countries in West Africa, including Nigeria and Ghana. In addition, the missionaries work in Tanzania, Egypt, Algeria and Lebanon. They have other religious offices in Europe, Argentina and Canada.

Religious life

The nuns live in areas where there is great poverty and which are characterized by war , violence , famine and unemployment . The apostolic activity focuses on education and the care of children and young people. Another focus is the work with women who have been victims of all kinds of violence and slavery . In the field of evangelization, the focus is on cooperation between Muslims and Christians . Her main idea is the commission given by Father Augustine:

“The more united we are, the more we will do God's works. The source of our communion is the Trinity: only in this way can we put communion into practice in our apostolic activity and also convey it to the people we meet in our work. Our vocation requires us to act as instruments of community in a divided and divided society in which there are many conflicts, as is the case, for example, in Algeria and Nigeria. By being able to bear witness to unity, our communities will demonstrate the real possibility of loving, peaceful and harmonious coexistence in which we also accept those who are different. "

See also

Web links

Individual evidence

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