Giovanni Bosco – “The Institute of the Daughters of Mary Help of christians” in “Salesian Sources 1. Don Bosco and his work. Collected works”

In the early 1870s, when the Salesian Society was going through a happy time of expansion beyond the borders of Piedmont, thanks also to the many vocations flowing in, Don Bosco, with a group of Daughters of Mary Immaculate at Mornese who were gathered around Mary Domenica Mazzarello (1837-1881), gave life to the Institute of the Daughters of Mary Help of Christians. In a very short time it was approved by the Diocesan Ordinary and aggregated to the Salesian society, then spread throughout Italy and overseas. We publish here five documents on this women’s foundation.

First of all the request to the Superior of the Sisters of St Anne, Mother Enrichetta Dominici, on adapting the Constitutions of the Society of St Francis de Sales to the new Institute of the Daughters of Mary Help of Christians (no. 44). Secondly the minutes of the first eleven triennial religious professions and the first five clothing ceremonies (four, according to other copies of the minutes), which in some ways was the founding act for the Institute itself (no. 45). Signed by the diocesan authorities, it lacks Don Bosco’s signature (he was at the professions, but not when the minutes of the ceremony were compiled), but he would make two corrections on another copy of the document.

Reference time period: 1871 – 1878

Reference institution:
Istituto Storico Salesiano