Our History

We RJM in the United States now form one province, but once we were three provinces. We are a tapestry woven of many cultures, a province with origins in Europe, French Canada and Mexico.  

The Religious of Jesus and Mary in the U.S.

Fall River, MA

The American experience of Religious of Jesus and Mary mirrors this nation's evolution within a multi-cultural and heterogeneous population.  In 1877, four sisters from Québec, Canada, arrived at Notre Dame Parish in Fall River, MA, where they opened an elementary school, an orphanage and a night school to meet the educational needs of a growing population of French-Canadian mill workers.

From there, they branched out to staff other parochial schools, to direct private boarding schools at elementary and secondary levels in New Hampshire [1881], Rhode Island [1884], and New York [1904], where they had already opened a residence for working women in lower Manhattan [1902].

With the expulsion of religious congregations from Mexico during its decades of persecution and civil war [1917-39], sisters arrived in the southwestern U.S. to start a boarding school in El Paso, Texas [1926].  They moved into border towns of New Mexico and southern California, where they ministered to Hispanic communities, staffed a women's residence in San Diego [1937] and taught in several parish schools, as well as missions in rural areas. The expatriates also opened a novitiate for Mexican candidates to the congregation.

Communities in the eastern U.S. formed part of the Canadian-American province until 1948-49, when they became autonomous as the Eastern-American province.

Hyattsville, MD

The post-war influx of novices and other circumstances led the provincial, Mother St. Vincent Ferrer Ducharme [1895-1955], to move the province's headquarters from Highland Mills, New York, to Hyattsville, Maryland, in the newly-formed Archdiocese of Washington, DC.  In August of 1955, sisters took up residence in yet-unfinished buildings, and opened a private girls' high school on the property, where the novitiate and infirmary were also housed until 1992. 

Communities in the southwest were dependent on Spain and Mexico until 1960, when they were established as the Western-American province. In 1968, both U.S. provinces were united, bringing together 341 sisters in sixteen educational institutions. Throughout the twentieth century, sisters were sent from the U.S. to Europe and Canada, as well as to missions in India, Pakistan, Lebanon, Colombia and Bolivia.  

Post-Conciliar Development

Since Vatican II, the Congregation has experienced institutional decline and numerical diminishment in Western Europe and North America, while extending its services to broader educational and pastoral needs in various parts of the developing world.  Sisters in the U.S., numbering under 100 in 2010, have closed many schools and convents and have moved into new quarters and lifestyles.  But they have multiplied their ministries by collaborating with other religious congregations, lay colleagues and associates at every level.  Since 1971, they have sponsored and directed QUEST, a project of volunteer-communities in service to the urban poor.  In recent years QUEST has served as the volunteer project for Haiti and the RJM ministry there.

RJM nurses in Port-au-Prince after the 2010 earthquake

In 1977, the province initiated the first of several "Christian communities" in the province, where sisters and young adults share prayer, life and ministry.  In 1998, following a unanimous decision of their provincial chapter, three sisters began a ministry in Gros Morne, Haiti, in the diocese of Gonaives.  In 2010, the community of 6 RJM is international and is located in Port-au-Prince and Jean Rabel as well as Gros Morne.  Several Haitian women have indicated interest in being admitted to the Congregation, and some have begun the formation process. With the devastation of the 2010 earthquake, the RJM continue to serve Haitian victims and to discern the best approach to a future in that beloved but beleaguered country. 

To help women in active discernment towards religious life, SOPHIA HOUSE was opened in 2004, in Arlington, MA. RJM from other provinces have also come to study and to support the women in their search for God.

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