Contemplative order of nuns traces its humble origins to our archdiocese

It may come as a surprise to many that our archdiocese was the original home to a contemplative order of religious sisters, an order that has since established convents across Canada, and even in the United State and Haiti.

This order – Les Recluse Missionnaires – began their mission in the most humble of circumstances, with three sisters housing their first convent out of an old log shack in northern Alberta.

Through using archival resources from our archdiocese and the archives of Les Recluse Missionnaires – plus an-in depth interview with a living member of the order today – this article traces the roots and tells the unique history of these contemplative sisters.

The first seeds of this order began simultaneously in Quebec and Alberta, planted in the hearts of a newly ordained bishop and priest in northern Alberta, and in the hearts of two young religious women in Montreal, Quebec.

Fr. Ubald Langlois, OMI was ordained a bishop and made the Vicar Apostolic of Grouard in 1938. According to the historical records of Les Recluse Missionnaires, Bishop Langlois had ambitions of seeing a community of contemplatives to come to his vast and isolated vicariate, but he had little initial success as he approached contemplative communities in Quebec. Instead, an entirely new order would have to take shape to make this a reality.

The woman who would become the co-foundress of Les Recluse Missionnaires – Mother Rita-Marie Renaud – was born in Montreal in 1918. Through her Catholic education and upbringing, she found a stirring towards contemplative religious life.

This especially came about when she learned of the life of Jeanne Le Ber, a Catholic woman who lived in New France during Canada’s early colonial days in the late 1600s. At a young age, Le Ber chose to live as a recluse in her family home, making vows of perpetual seclusion, chastity and poverty, and lived out these vows for the rest of her days. Rita-Marie was deeply inspired by Jeanne Le Ber’s intense spirituality, voluntarily dedicating all of her life to solitude, prayer and contemplation.

“Rita-Marie received her education through the Sisters of the Congregation of Notre-Dame through which she discovered the life of the Canadian recluse Jeanne Le Ber,” said Sister Ginette Généreux, RM, a Recluse Missionnaire residing in Montreal today. “She developed a strong attraction to the Blessed Sacrament and to reclusion, which would become the two main components of our community.”

In 1939, Rita-Marie entered the religious order the Congregation of the Servants of the Blessed Sacrament as a novice. But due to struggles with her health, she had to leave after five months. Thus, Rita-Marie put her ambitions towards religious life on hold and took a job as a teacher. This was until she met the woman who would be her lifelong friend and co-foundress of Les Recluse Missionnaires – Jeanette Roy.

In October of 1941, Jeanette and Rita-Marie met by providential chance at the Foyer de la Protection de la Jeune Fille in Montreal, where both volunteered. When Jeanette overheard Rita-Marie speaking with her spiritual director about her admiration for Jeanne Le Ber, Jeanette knew she had to make an acquaintance with this woman. Before this time, Jeanette had made several attempts to join a contemplative religious order herself, but had yet to find a charism that spoke to her.

The two devout women bonded over their mutual fondness for the spiritual life. They were both educated by the Sisters of the Congregation of Notre-Dame and both had an admiration for Jeanne Le Ber. Soon, they began taking pilgrimages together, often by walking barefoot to the Sainte-Anne-de- Beaupré shrine, and eventually decided to live together as hermits out of a stable near Rita-Marie’s father’s house. They did this to follow in the footsteps of Jeanne Le Ber who began her religious life as a recluse within her family home.

All while this was happening, in Tangent, Alberta an Oblate priest named Fr. Louis-Marie Parent, OMI, was settling into his new role as parish priest. Knowing his bishop’s desire for a presence of contemplative sisters in his vicariate, Parent’s ears perked up when he heard word of two women in Montreal without a religious order living as hermits.

With permission, Fr. Parent wrote to Rita-Marie to invite the two women to come to northern Alberta, with the proposition of establishing a contemplative order and convent in the region. The two women accepted the proposition, and began developing a rule for themselves – a rule that would become the foundation of Les Recluse Missionnaires’ spiritual charism.

At first, Fr. Parent had propositioned the sisters to help teach catechesis in the area. But by the time they arrived in 1943, the Sisters of the Holy Cross had already arrived in the vicariate to fulfill that role. This gave the two foundresses the opportunity to fully devote themselves to the reclusive and contemplative spiritual life they desired.

When the pair headed out for western Canada, Rita-Marie & Jeanette were joined by one other Montreal woman drawn to contemplative life – Jeanette Beaupré.

“Upon their arrival in Tangent on August 14th, 1943, all the right elements were in place for the founding of our community,” said Sr. Ginette.

Upon their arrival, the sisters soon began to make arrangements in their first convent – a log shack that had formerly been used as a grain store. It was a most humble abode that reflected the life of poverty and isolation these women were coming to establish.

As a first order of business, the women had to get to work cleaning out, restoring and caulking this shack to make it a habitable residence. Thankfully, through Rita-Marie and Jeanette’s time making a hermitage out of a stable in Quebec, they were well-prepared for such a task.

As Sr. Ginette notes, the easily-drawn parallels to the Lord’s Nativity, particularly that barn-like dwelling place within which the Lord entered the world on that fateful night in Bethlehem, were not lost on these first Missionnaires.

“Their first home is what we sisters now remember as ‘the shack’. The sisters then called it their Bethléem [Bethlehem, literally ‘House of Bread’] since it was a former granary transformed into a very modest living space,” said Sr. Ginette.

After arriving in the West, Rita-Marie and Jeanette wrote further drafts of the potential rule for the religious order they had come to found. Their rule was finally approved by the Vatican in 1951 and Les Recluse Missionnaires gained official status. Rita-Marie and Jeanette shared the duties as Mother and Foundress of the order. Jeanette took the name of the woman who inspired her to seek religious life, thus she became “Mother Jeanne Le Ber”.

The Rule of Les Recluse Missionnaires was structured and imbued with the spirit of the Beatitudes – the blessings Jesus gave during his Sermon on the Mount. Each month, the community would select one of these Beatitudes and make it the centre of their reflection and prayer for that month. Perpetual adoration and continual recitation of the Rosary were also central to their contemplative life. It is said that Rita-Marie aspired to “encircle the world with the Rosary”, and thus their recitation of this Marian devotion was almost constant and un-ending.

This is only an excerpt. Read the full story in the April 2025 edition of Northern Light