The Claretian Missionary Sisters were founded in mid-XIX century, during a time of crisis in the Church. Our founders, St. Anthony Mary Claret and Venerable Mother Maria Antonia Paris had a profound love for the Church and were concerned about its need for renewal. For them renewal would come through fidelity to the Gospel, living the evangelical counsels of poverty, chastity, and obedience with utmost faithfulness and working tirelessly in the evangelization of all peoples. The Lord asked them to found a new order, “but not new in its teaching, but in its practice.”

As Claretian Sisters, we have been called to unite action and contemplation. Our missionary activity springs from a daily encounter with the Lord in prayer. Our mission is supported by our community life, of which Antonia París spoke in terms of a family, after the example of the early Church: "Charity makes us a family with a single heart."

From the beginning of the Institute, Mary has been mother, friend, and model to the Claretian Sisters. Mary, in the mystery of her Immaculate Conception, is our patroness. This mystery impels us to struggle against evil in any of its forms, and it renders us open to love and joy. Mary, as the woman who is open to the Spirit and incarnates the Word to shares it, is our model of evangelizer.

The best description of who a Claretian Missionary Sister is called to be is found in the Aim and Goal of the Order written by Antonia Paris.

“The principal aim of the religious of this order is to work with all diligence in the Lord, in the utmost fulfillment of God’s Law and the evangelical counsels and, in imitation of the Holy Apostles, work until death in teaching every creature the holy Laz of the Lord.

 Our form and manner of life:

            - requires that all people who wish to be enrolled in it should be crucified to all the things of the world.

            - our Institute also requires that its daughters be stripped of all their disordinate affections and passions, so that they may be able to follow in the footsteps of Christ our highest good.

            - requires them to die to themselves in order to live for justice and holiness alone, and that they should  earnestly strive to be faithful servants of our great God, as Saint Paul says:

- in vigils, fastings and labors;      
- in chastity, knowledge and kindness;
- in sincere love;
- in truthful speech.
- and that on the way to their heavenly homeland,

 they strive to teach others that same way and to make it easy for them with the armor of justice and example on the right hand and on the left:

            whether honored or dishonored,
            whether in prosperity or adversity,
- seeking in everything and through everything:
            the conversion of all consecrated persons to the service of God
            and the conversion of the whole world.

- for the greater glory of God and God’s most holy Mother.”