Just published (in French) The Visitation of Holy Mary in Congo-Brazzaville 1964-2010, by Sister Francoise Marie Balekoro, this book tells the fascinating story of the foundation of the Visitation Order in Africa.
The insightful Bishop who realized the young African Church would benefit from the prayers of contemplative religious enabled the two communities of Loango and Loudima to be established.
The Constitutions of the Order of the Visitation are based on the Rule of St. Augustine, an African. And as that great Saint and Bishop suggested, the Congolese Visitandines repeat today, ” Praise God with psalms and hymns. God is love.”
The author, Sister Francoise Marie Balekoro, was born in 1950 in the Mission of Lekana north of Brazzaville. She attended the College of the Spiritan Sisters and was the first Congolese to take the habit of the Visitation in the new foundation of Loango, making her religious Profession in 1970, afterwards studying, through correspondence courses, to be a nurse and traveling to France for further religious formation in various monasteries. Sister Francoise Marie participated in the foundation of the Monastery of Loudima and was elected Superior several times since 1997. Sister Francoise Marie continues to live out her Visitandine vocation in Loudima.