Our history
From the heart and pen of Claret
Saint Anthony Mary Claret, only recognized Founder of the Institute, obeying a “thought that the Lord inspired him”, wanted to “provide some channels that made it possible to live the consecration to God in middle of the world.
To achieve this goal, and obeying his prophetic heart, he did what was possible in the difficult and closed environment of the 19th century: wrote a book – Daughters of the Most Holy and Immaculate Heart of Mary or Religious in their homes – and worked as much as he could for his publication and subsequent dissemination.
Claret’s thought began to spread at the same time in Spain and in America. For almost a century it has been the norm of life embraced on a personal basis, we had to wait until the middle of the XX century to see the organizational beginnings.
Organizational beginnings
On May 6, 1943, in Plasencia, the first group of young people were gathered by four Claretian missionaries in love with Claret’s thought: Manuel Jiménez, Agapito Robles, Vicente Gómez and José María Rodríguez.
In September of the same year, in the Parish of Our Lady of Sorrows in Seville a new group was born.
In the following years, with a similar impulse, nuclei emerged in different cities of Spain and America, always under the protection of the Congregation of Missionaries Sons of the Heart of Mary.
En busca de la definición del propio ser
In 1944 a Commission – appointed by the Provincial Superior of Bética – drafted the first Statutes that gave a new impetus to the expansion of the Institute by favoring the founding of new presences.
On February 2, 1947, Pius XII promulgated the Apostolic Constitution Provida Mater Ecclesia that recognize and approve, under the name Secular Institutes, the possibility of embracing consecrated life while remaining in temporary structures, “in the heart of the world.” This ecclesiastical fact clearly pointed the way and all efforts were directed towards this definition.
The Institute reaches, with the Diocesan Approval, its full legal definition on the 19th of March 1971. Shortly afterwards, on November 21, 1973, Cordimarian Filiation is recognized as a Secular Institute of Pontifical Law.