We Marist Missionary Sisters are one group within a larger Marist Family.

The Society of Mary (SM)

The Marists began in Lyons, France, when, on July 23rd 1816, a small group of newly-ordained priests and seminarians gathered in the chapel of Our Lady of Fourviere and promised to begin a new order in the Church.

One of them, Father Jean-Claude Colin, a diocesan priest sent to a small country parish in Cerdon, was determined to see this dream become a reality.  He quietly worked on a vision and a Rule for this new congregation.  By 1824, he obtained permission from the local Bishop for the small band of Marist priests to go about preaching in the isolated villages in the mountains. He became the first superior of the Marist Fathers and the founder of the Society of Mary, which includes both priests and brothers (SM).  The Society gained Vatican approval in 1836.  The Pope asked them to send missionaries to the Pacific Islands, and on Christmas Eve of the same year, the first band of Marist Missionaries set sail for the Pacific.

The Marist Laity
Father Colin’s vision of the Society of Mary, was “a tree with several branches” – including priests, brothers, sisters and lay people.  The Marist Laity, in the form of the Third Order of Mary, was the second branch to be approved by Rome in 1850. Today there are a variety of groups and individuals who are considered “Marist Laity”. Their common aim is to live in this world “in the spirit of Mary”

The Marist Brothers (FMS)
Another member of the first group of Marists was Father (now Saint) Marcellin Champagnat.  He saw the appalling state of the children in post-Revolutionary France, and founded the Marist Brothers of the Schools (FMS), which received Vatican approval in 1863. These Marist Brothers have become the largest branch of the Marist Family and their work of education continues in many countries of the world.

The Marist Sisters (SM)
A group of women, led by Jeanne-Marie Chavoin, were attracted to the Marist way of life even during the early years of the formation of the Marist Fathers and Brothers.  Sister Jeanne-Marie and Father Colin are considered co-founders of the Marist Sisters, whose rule was approved by Rome in 1884.  Beginning in France, the Marist Sisters, too, are involved in different types of ministries and are present in many different countries.

The Missionary Sisters of the Society of Mary (SMSM)
We, Marist Missionary Sisters, have an unusual and complicated history.  We can claim no founder, but we are “heirs of our pioneer sisters.”  The first of these women, Marie Francoise Perroton, set sail from France in 1845 in response to an appeal from the women of the island of Wallis to “send us some pious women (some sisters) to teach the women of Uvea.” After 12 years, with the help and encouragement of Father Favre SM, the successor of Fr. Colin as superior General, other French women began to follow, until by 1860 eleven Sisters had departed for Oceania.  During those years several Pacific Island women joined the Sisters.  At first our sisters followed the Rule of the Third Order of Mary and took a vow of obedience to the bishop of the area in which they served.  Only gradually did we become organized into one congregation named the Missionary Sisters of the Society of Mary, approved by Rome in 1931.  After that we became open to worldwide mission and began serving in other parts of the world from Africa to Latin America, to Asia – to any place in which there is a need for missionary service.