Donum Dei Becomes Society of Apostolic Life and Aggregated to the Order
As of December 8, 2020, Travailleuses Missionaire de l'Immaculée (TMI) – popularly known as Donum Dei – have had a new canonical status which has now resulted in them formally being erected as a Society of Apostolic Life under the Diocese of Marseilles in France.
This has been a long journey which goes back to 2014, when work began on studying and discussing the steps to be taken to find a new canonical form for what was then called the Famille Missionnaire Donum Dei (FMDD). After several consultations with the Dicastery for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life (DIVCSVA), the General Curia, the leadership of FMDD, and the French Bishops, with the decree of 10 July 2015, Fr. Michael Farrugia, O. Carm., the procurator general, was appointed as apostolic visitor and head of the visitation in collaboration with other visitors.
During the apostolic visitation, carried out together with three other persons, there were many meetings with the bishops and with all the members of the FMDD, residing in different parts of the world.
After considering the report of the visitators, on February 9, 2017, the DIVCSVA appointed Fr Farrugia and Ms Françoise Laplane of the Institut Notre-Dame-de Vie as apostolic assistants. Their task was to accompany the Travailleuses Missionaire de l'Immaculée in order to identify a new canonical form of consecrated life with which they would continue to be present within the Church.
In the course of this accompaniment, work had to be done on a new text of the Constitutions, with a view to adopting a new form of consecrated life: that of a Society of Apostolic Life. In agreement with the DIVCSVA, other religious, resident in France, experts in this form of consecrated life, were appointed to provide adequate assistance in the course of the work, which required several stages and many meetings.
In this context, it should be emphasised that throughout the process fraternal collaboration was received both from the General Council of TMI and the Commission appointed specifically to draft the text of the Constitutions, as well as from all the members of the Travailleuses Missionaire de l'Immaculée.
Following the drafting of the Constitutions, the Constitutive Chapter presided over by the apostolic assistants was held from January 12-27, 2019 in Grace Dieu, France. During this Chapter, the text of the Constitutions, later presented to the DIVCSVA, was approved, and the new government of the new Society of Apostolic Life was elected. On the last day, the Archbishop of Marseilles, France, was present. Following the indication of DIVCSVA, the Donum Dei Society of Apostolic Life, named Travailleuses Missionaire de l'Immaculée, will for the first years be a Society of diocesan right under the jurisdiction of the Archbishop of Marseille. On 8 December 2020, there was the decree of erection as a Society of Apostolic Life by the Archbishop of Marseille.
In response to their request, the Donum Dei Society of Apostolic Life, was then aggregated to the Carmelite Order on 21st June 2021.
Unfortunately, the Covid-19 pandemic prevented any possibility of celebrating their new status and affiliation to the Carmelite Family. However, on 29th May 2022, the prior general, along with all the members of the General Council and Curia present in Rome at that time, celebrated Sunday Eucharist together with the members of Donum Dei in the Basilica di Sant Eustachio in Campo Marzio (Rome) to mark both their new canonical status and their affiliation to the Carmelite Family. Afterwards, everyone went to the nearby restaurant of Donum Dei, L'Eau Vive, for a celebratory lunch.
