Seven Institutes Become One Order
With this Decree granted by the Holy see, the religious family of Jeanne Chézard de Matel, founded in 1625, is reborn in the Church as a single institute with the name, ORDER OF THE THE INCARNATE WORD AND BLESSED SACRAMENT.
This Decree, which took place in the Virgin’s Chapel – Notre Dame de Fourvière of Lyon, France, July 2, 2023, approves and confirms the union of seven Religious Institutes that recognize Venerable Jeanne Chézard de Matel as foundress.
Our Foundress
Jeanne Chezard
de Matel
Born in Roanne, France, in 1596, Jeanne Chezard de Matel was called by God to be a foundress, mystic, author, teacher, spiritual director and theologian—at a time when women were not highly recognized in any of these roles. In love with the Incarnate Word, she passionately pursued the desire of her life, to “extend the mystery of the Incarnation,” by founding the Order of the Incarnate Word and Blessed Sacrament in 1625. She understood her vocation and the vocation of the Order’s members to be both contemplative and apostolic—a call to encounter the loving Word of God incarnate in Jesus, and then to enflesh that Word in ministry. Jeanne’s life was filled with struggle, opposition, periods of darkness and much suffering. But it was out of these ingredients of her human life fortified by the joy she experienced in her relationship with the Incarnate Word that God formed and shaped the woman that Jeanne became.