The Sisters of Our Lady of the Missions: From Ultramontane Origins to a New Cosmology

This book traces the journey taken by the Canadian Province of the Sisters of Our Lady of the Missions / Religieuses de Notre Dame des Missions (RNDM), from its establishment in Manitoba in 1898 to 2008, when the congregation as a whole redefined its mission and vision. Using archival research conducted in Canada, England, and Italy and incorporating oral interviews with RNDM sisters, this book explores the historical work of the sisters in schools and the part they played in the developing educational state.

The congregation’s activities in schools, first in Manitoba and Saskatchewan and later in Ontario and Quebec, show how the sisters’ educational work related to the social characteristics of the communities they worked in (e.g., those of French Canadian settlers, British and continental European immigrants, and the Metis population). The Sisters of Our Lady of the Missions examines the impact of Vatican II in the 1960s and into the 2000s as well as the dismantling of neo-scholasticism and the process of secularization of consciousness in society at large. These emerging issues led the congregation to examine its individual and collective identity at the intersection of feminist theology, eco-spirituality, and a critique of Western cosmology.