In 1823 Lucie Contraine and three other needleworkers in the town of Douai, in Northern France, came together to support one another in deepening their spiritual life.

With the guidance of their parish priest they soon welcomed other women and children for religious instruction and the acquiring of useful skills. Once Fr Jean Baptiste Debrabant assumed their directorship and Eulalie Ramon joined the gathering, they focused on revealing God’s love through Christian Education of the youth in that post-revolutionary era. Lucie and Eulalie were among the hundred women who first pronounced public vows as Holy Union Sisters in 1843.

In France and Belgium they established schools that responded to the needs of the area, rural or urban; to the desires of the families, boarding or day schools; to the needs of children of all social classes.

The re-establishment of the Roman Catholic hierarchy in England and the influx of workers for emerging industries favoured the extension of the Sisters’ ministry to England and soon to Ireland. Requests from parents in Buenos Aires led to openings of convent schools in Argentina. The parish school model among immigrants in the United States was one to which the Sisters responded. Then came the challenge of assuring catechetical instruction of African-Americans in the West Indies. That led to readiness to serve Africans in Cameroon, Tanzania, Burundi and Benin.

More recently, Holy Union Sisters have answered the call from the Vatican to work among the suffering people of Haiti.

The heart of the world is our territory - an expanse without boarders.