| "The mysterious Sitio which the
Divine Crucified One breathed from the height of His cross, has
found an echo in my poor heart. I have meditated upon it,
I have relished it, I have understood it; and, in turn, I
have cried out in ardent transports: ‘I thirst!’
"If they are truly contemplatives, she writes, God
will grant their souls divine wings to let them fly as Angels to
wherever the interests of their Beloved might call them".
Thus can be explained the genesis of the numerous foundations.
Eleven of them are attributed to Mother Catherine-Aurelia, others
are due to various monasteries.
On January 5, 1879, Mother Catherine-Aurelia expressed to Mgr Louis-Zéphirin
Moreau a wish that there be, as she expected, a new form of government
-a Generalate. Only in 1945 would it be possible to establish such
a Generalate.
Later, on September 9, 1949, a Generalate was also established
for our English-speaking Sisters in Canada. Since our monasteries
in the United-States preferred a Federation, they were granted that
choice on October 16, 1968, whereas our two Japanese monasteries
in Kagoshima and Nasu remain autonomous to this day.
"Whether the new form of government be called ‘Generalate’
or by any other name, no matter - said Mother Catherine-Aurelia
– but all the monasteries, however, must entertain relations
with the founding monastery and receive its visits, in order that
the same spirit be maintained ".
To have the same life-blood flowing into each member of our Institute
: "a common life-blood and a common soul", such
was her ardent desire.
How often the words of Gn 12,8 have been
materialised in the main development of the Institute:
"There, he built an altar to the Lord
and invoked His NAME".
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