The Recollets (English: Recollects) were a French branch of the Roman Catholic order, the Franciscans (Latin: Ordo Fratrum Minorum), first established in France about 1570. According to one historian, "Recollection-houses are, strictly speaking, those monasteries to which friars desirous of devoting themselves to prayer and penance can withdraw to consecrate their lives to spiritual recollection". The French Récollets had 11 provinces with 2534 cloisters by the late 18th century. The order was suppressed during the French Revolution.
Canada
The Récollets were important as missionaries to the French colonies in Canada, although they were displaced there by the Jesuits. The first Récollet missionaries arrived at Quebec City, from Rouen on June 2, 1615. The Récollet fathers are said to have brewed the first beer in New France in 1620. They left New France in 1629 but returned in 1670. After the British conquest, the order was prohibited from recruiting new members. The last Canadian Récollet Brother Louis died in 1848 at Quebec City.
Jouve, Odoric-Marie. Dictionnaire biographique des Récollets missionaires en Nouvelle-France, 1615-1645 - 1670-1849, province franciscaine Saint-Joseph du Canada. Saint Laurent, Quebec : Bellarmin, 1996. ISBN 2890078159.
Rue des Récollets, Québec (http://www.ville.quebec.qc.ca/fr/ma_ville/toponymie/rues/recollets.shtml)
Black Robes (http://www.collectionscanada.ca/explorers/h24-1430-e.html)
Order of Friars Minor - see General History of the Order Second Period (1517-1909) (3) The Recollects (http://www.ewtn.com/padrepio/franciscan/ofm.htm)
Franciscans and Dominicans had preceded him thither, but the scandalous example of irreligion and immorality set by the colonists had made it nearly impossible for these devoted men to win converts amongst the pagan races.
The Franciscans were early in the field to tend to the spiritual wants of the natives, who stood in need of some defenders to protect them from the greed of the Portuguese officials.
The Franciscan Fathers who accompanied the expedition addressed themselves at once to the conversion of the natives; but the difficulty of making themselves understood, the cruelty of the first conquerors towards the natives, and the bad example of the early colonists, made their work much more difficult than it might have been.
He was born 5 December, 1845, at Bernedo in the Spanish province of Alava, received his early education in Biscaglia and in 1860 entered the French Franciscan province of St-Louis.
In 1865 he was sent to the Franciscan college at La Paz, where he was ordained in 1869, after which he laboured from 1871 till 1880 as a missionary among the Indians in Tumupasa and Covendo.
Concerning the Franciscan missions of the diocese, cf.
Feeds |
Contact