Jacques-Francois Dujarié

Father Jacques-Francois Dujarié was a French Catholic priest of the Diocese of Le Mans, France ordained underground in the height of the terrors of the French Revolution. Throughout the Revolutionary period he continued to minister to the Catholic faithful throughout Northeastern France, particularly in the country side around Le Mans.

Profoundly concerned about the state of affairs the Revolution left in its wake for the Church and for the system of education, Fr. Dujarie founded in 1806 the Congregation of the Sisters of Providence at the country village of Ruillé-sur-Loir, where he was the parish priest after the restoration of the Church. Immediately the Sisters set up a school, dispensary and a routine of visiting and caring for the ill. Within just a few years the group of women had grown so much that Fr. Dujarie was able to obtain permission to have the women become a recognized religious congregation. He named them the Sisters of Providence because they had so much with almost no resources, depending only on God to provide. Their motto is: "Deus Providebit", "God will provide."

Years later, as part of his vision to build a joint congregation of men and women, of priests, brothers and sisters all working together providing for one another the gifts of their vocation for the sake of the mission, Fr. Dujarie in 1820 founded the Brothers of St. Joseph. Also dedicated to the renewal of the education and the Church, the brothers by his plan would share in the resources of the Sisters of Providence. This the sisters objected to and had him removed from a position of responsibility for their Congregation.

In 1835, the Brothers of St. Joseph had grown to open and teach in school throughout Northwestern France, in as many as 60 institutions. Still, they had not been formed into a religious community with a novitiate or recognition from the Church. In this year Fr. Dujarie on account of his failing health handed responsibility for the Brothers of St. Joseph to Fr. Basil Anthony-Marie Moreau, who had in the same year founded a group of Auxiliary Priests within the Le Mans Diocese. By 1837, Fr. Moreau would take a major step toward realizing Fr. Dujarie's dream of a unique congregation of men and women, priests, brothers and sister on the model of the Holy Family, by bringing together the Brothers of St. Joseph and the Auxiliary Priests of the Diocese of Le Mans into a the new Association of Holy Cross which would become the Congregation of Holy Cross.

Fr. Dujarie died in 1836 the founder of two communities which would eventually become six congregations: the Sisters of Providence, (France), the Sisters of Providence of Saint Mary-of-the-Woods, (Indiana), the Congregation of (Holy Cross Priests and Brothers), the Marianites of Holy Cross (Louisiana), the Sisters of the Holy Cross (Indiana), and the Sisters of Holy Cross (Montreal).