Lyon, France

Today, Lyon is the second largest metropolitan area in France. The history of Lyon is linked to its geographical location at the confluence of two navigable rivers, the Rhone and the Saone. It was a center for Roman merchants as early as the 2nd century, but experienced a decline until the Franc's conquest in 470 AD led to the building of bridges, abbeys, and hospitals. The Italians introduced the silk industry in the 15th century, and German printers took refuge during the Reformation. Florentine bankers transferred their financial operations to Lyon, increasing the city's prominence and reputation as an industrial and cultural center.

In 1822, the Society for the Propagation of the Faith was founded in Lyon, upon the insight and initiative of a young French laywomen, Pauline Marie Jaricot. It grew to become one of four Pontifical Mission Societies, and the principle fund-raising and distribution agency for all Roman Catholic missions, assisting missionary priests, brothers, and nuns in mission areas.

Pauline was committed to the formation of a missionary conscientiousness in Christians. Through prayer and small monetary donations, ordinary lay women and men could support the preaching of the Gospel and establishing it in areas of the world where it had not been before. The very first collection of the Propagation of the Faith in 1822 supported the vast Diocese of Louisiana and the Two Floridas in the United States, which then extended from Florida to Canada.

This culture of "missionary zeal" as well as a spiritual renewal in France (post Revolution) generated spiritual luminaries and communities formed for evangelization and mission to the poor. It was one such community, the Monastery of the Incarnate Word and Blessed Sacrament, that Louise Chollet (later Mother Madeleine Chollet) and Jeanne Pierrette Cinquin (later Mother St. Pierre) joined in 1867. They journeyed to the mission in Texas a year later, and in 1869, established the Congregation of the Sisters of Charity of the Incarnate Word, San Antonio, Texas.