L'éclosion de la vocation religieuse chez les soeurs dominicaines de Trois-Rivières : pour un complément aux perspectives de l'historiographie récente

Abstract

Since 1901, 696 French Canadian women, including the founders, entered the Dominicaines du Rosaire in Trois-Rivières and the congregation that succeeded it. Of these, 262 intended to remain; some died before making their final vows, while some who professed perpetual vows ended by leaving, in the middle of the 1960s, after living a number of years in the community. This study of the Dominican convent of Trois-Rivières suggests that the main factors that contributed to encouraging vocations with the Dominicans are not to be found in the women’s social or geographic origins, but rather in the circumstances of their childhood and adolescence, as well as in family or other support for religious life. As well, those entering the convent after 1945 maintain a relationship with their vocation that differs from that of their predecessors. The rich qualitative sources allow the authors to construct a discourse that, without neglecting the role of structural and sociological factors in the awakening of these women’s vocations, also gives place to the more cultural and spiritual dimensions of this choice of life.