Incarnate Word Heritage, The Founding of the Congregation

Bishop Claude Marie Dubuis of Galveston needed lots of help in his frontier diocese in post-Civil War Texas. He looked to his homeland (France) and asked a community of Sisters dedicated to prayer, to recruit and train women religious to come to Texas to help with the recurring epidemics. Thus was born the Sisters of the Charity of the Incarnate Word (1866) who would make real through service the love God has for us. Bishop Dubuis put his request in very Incarnational terms: “Our Lord Jesus Christ, suffering in the persons of a multitude of sick and infirm of every kind seeks relief at your hands.”

Sister Margaret Patrice Slattery narrates this founding story.