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WHY NOT THROUGHOUT THE UNIVERSE?
19th July 1790
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The Holy Spirit inspires Father de Cloriviere to preserve religious life In France, the Revolution which began in the year 1789 was rumbling like a thunderstorm. The revolution set out to destroy not only the old system of government and royalty, but also religion.
On 13th February 1790, a law was passed by which it was forbidden for any man or woman to take vows of religion.
The State took possession of the College in Dinan of which Father de Cloriviere was Director and he had to leave.
What was he to do ?
He thought of going to America.
But on 19th July 1790, after his morning prayer, when he was thinking of re-establishing the Society of Jesus in America, an inner voice said to him very clearly,
"Why not in France ? Why not in the whole world ?"
And as in the twinkling of an eye, but yet in quite great detail, there came to him the idea of a kind of life which he wrote down at once...
The members of this religious Society would take three vows and live as the first Christians and preachers of the gospel did in the first century of the Church.
Some time after that, Father de Cloriviere had the sudden inspiration to do for women what he was about to do for men. After having implored the light of the Holy Spirit, he wrote down, on the spot, all that had been revealed to him by the inner voice.
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Marie Adelaide was given the task of making many copies and adding comments giving clear explanations for those wishing to live as religious in the world, without a habit and ever ready to do whatever God might ask of them. (***)