Partners

Brèches and the Hospitaller Sisters of Saint-Joseph

Brèches is a lay project of collective reflection, healing and creation that finds its inspiration in the work of the Hospitaller Sisters of Saint-Joseph. It is found in the way they embodied and lived every facet of their mission as well as in the charism they received from their founder, Jérôme Le Royer de la Dauversière: to be free to love and to serve.  

For over three hundred and sixty years, the Hospitaller Sisters of Saint-Joseph have played a major social role in Montreal. They deployed all the means at their disposal to fulfill their mission of making healthcare accessible to all. They forged alliances with teaching institutions, physicians and research institutes that would help develop Montreal's healthcare ecosystem. They built a great hospital, the Hôtel-Dieu, on the slopes of Mount Royal, which they kept updated to meet the needs and advances of medicine. 

Visionaries, administrators, archivists and laundresses, most of the hospitallers were also nurses, and worked on-site with doctors to care for the sick. They lived their faith and their mission by participating with rigor and benevolence in the development of accessible health care consistent with the many innovations in medical science. They carried out this mission while being deeply driven by their charism, encouraging them to “be free to love and to serve”.  

Even today, despite the increasing age of the members of their congregation and the many challenges they have faced, they continue to carry with vigor this flame of awareness, openness and solidarity.

Recognizing the many crises currently afflicting our world, as well as the limits of religious institutions to offer answers that resonate with Montreal's diverse communities today, the sisters wish to bequeath something of their spirit and commitment, both to participate in the development and perpetuation of the transitional Cité-des-Hospitalières, and to contribute to the search for meaning and humanity for future generations. So, in 2023, they decided to support the creation of a secular project for collective reflection and healing based on true encounters.

And so Brèches was born – a breakthrough of hope so that joy, beauty, care, solidarity and benevolence continue to shake up and build Montreal.