Reverend Mother Catherine Aurelia of the Precious Blood (Aurelia Caouette), was born in St. Hyacinthe, Canada, on July 11th, 1833.

God, who had chosen and predestined this humble young girl for a great and sublime mission, poured into her privileged soul the divine treasures of His infinite love and eternal mercies, and inspired her with the belief that she was called by Him to found a Religious Community of Adoration and Reparation to the honor and glory of the Most Precious Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ.

It was also His good pleasure that the reality of this inspiration should be tested by that “patient waiting” which serves so well as a spiritual crucible to consume all that is not gold in our pious desires. The project of a Monastery of Precious Blood was considered for several years before being put into execution; and it was only after long and serious deliberations, numerous obstacles and incredible contradictions that the austere dream of her life was fully realized.

It belonged to His Lordship, Monsignor Joseph La Rocque, Bishop of Hyacinthe, by virtue of his Episcopal authority, to lay the foundation of new Institute, and on September 14th, 1861, the Cross rose radiantly on a new Calvary. A new Congregation was founded in the Church – the first Contemplative Community was established in Canada. The Institute of the Adorers of the humble home of the Foundress became the cradle of the Institute.

It was ordained that the closing years on earth of the noble and holy Monsignor La Rocque should be devoted to the solidification and organization of his Institute. Obliged by ill health to resign the administration of his diocese, shortly after the foundation of Community, he retired to the Monastery of the Precious Blood, where as the beloved object of the solicitude of his spiritual daughters, he lived amongst them to the end, untiringly devoting himself to their religious interests. With the concurrence of the Mother Foundress, and that of him, who from her childhood had been her spiritual director, Monsignor J. S. Raymond, Bishop La Rocque, composed the Constitutions of the Community, and the Treatise on devotion of the Precious Blood, as well as several volumes of meditations on the same theme. This revered Founder passed peacefully to a better life on November 18th, 1887.

On the 20th of October 1896, Mother Catherine Aurelia of the Precious Blood had the sweet and supreme consolation of seeing her Institute judged worthy by Rome, of being solemnly and definitively approved.

Enriched with the most extraordinary and supernatural gifts, having reached the highest degree of union with God, consumed by the ardor of her love for the Blood of Christ and her vehement desires for the heavenly Fatherland, the revered Foundress passed away peacefully on July 6, 1905, during the Octave of the Feast of the Precious blood, having still on her dying lips the aspiration of her life, her “Sitio” of love: “I Thirst!”

The Blessing of Divine Providence was with it at its beginning. Today, the Institute has various Monasteries in the United States, Canada, and Japan. Glory to Blood of Jesus! May it enfold the whole world in Its salutary waves.

The Sisters came to Watertown from Manchester, N.H., in 1963 at the invitation of His Excellency, the Most Reverend Leo R. Smith, Bishop of Ogdensburg.