....... "M. Claude François Poullart des Places, on the Feast of Pentecost, 1703, then only an aspirant to the ecclesiastical state, began the establishment of the Community and Seminary of the Holy Spirit, under the invocation of the Blessed Virgin conceived without sin" .
In the church of Saint-Etienne-des-Grès in Paris , Claude and his twelve friends decided to give themselves to the service of the poor.
27 May 1803
A hundred years later - what should have been the first centenary. Hundreds of priests who had been trained in the Holy Ghost Seminary were working throughout the world: in North America , China , Cambodia , Vietnam , Siam and India , as well as the French colonies.
But there would be no celebrations for the first centenary. In 1792, the French Revolution confiscated all the goods of the Congregation. The members of the Society were scattered in Switzerland , Italy , England and the United States .
27 May, 1903
Another centenary. The merger of Libermann's Congregation with the Spiritans had resulted in a flourishing and expanding missionary family. There were 1,400 members and several new Provinces were being developed in Europe and North America .
But just as in 1803, another grave crisis was threatening the very heart of the Congregation: its dissolution in the whole of France . Mgr. Le Roy wrote to his confrères: "The present circumstances do not allow us to celebrate this second centenary of our foundation with the joy and solemnity that we would otherwise have liked...Our history, the history of these last 200 years, should teach us never to despair...because God does not abandon those who remain worthy to serve him".
27 May, 2003
We celebrated our three hundredth birthday
In this century, the Congregation has become truly international. Colonial power has waned, but the world is divided into zones of economic influence. Spiritan missionaries are working in northern cities and southern savannas. New foundations are starting in Africa , new developments in Latin America , in Asia . Lay associates are joining our missionary family. The renewal of our service to the poor is by far the most important contribution that we brought to the spiritan jubilee of 2003.
300 years of Spiritan mission
It is May 27, 1703 , the Feast of Pentecost in the church of Saint-Etienne-des Grès in Paris . A dozen poor clerical students are praying at the statue of the Black Virgin of Paris, our Lady of Deliverance. The one who has brought them together is their friend Claude François Poullart des Places. They have come to dedicate their lives to the Holy Spirit. It is far more than a simple act of devotion: their communal consecration marks the foundation of the first community of the Seminary of the Holy Spirit. The first 150 years of its history will see growth and development, ruptures and restorations, and the training and sending out of missionaries in France and overseas.
...The year is now 1848 and around forty missionaries of the Holy Heart of Mary, a new Congregation founded in 1841 by Frs. Libermann, Le Vavasseur and Tisserant, are totally integrated into the Congregation of the Holy Spirit. A new chapter in the story of this Congregation is about to start. In the year 2003, we will celebrate the labours of the Spiritans who sowed the seeds of the new Churches of today, in tears and in joy.
2000 years of evangelisation
These 300 years of spiritan mission are our contribution to 2000 years of Christian evangelisation. Pope John Paul II, when inviting the Church and all Christians to prepare for the coming of the third millennium, looked back on the different periods of the Church's mission:
"Ever since the apostolic age, the Church's mission has continued without interruption within the whole human family. The first evangelisation took place mostly in the region of the Mediterranean . In the course of the first millennium, missions setting out from Rome and Constantinople brought Christianity to the whole continent of Europe . At the same time, they made their way to the heart of Asia , as far as India and China . The end of the fifteenth century marked both the discovery of America and the beginning of the evangelisation of that great continent, North and South. Simultaneously, while the sub-Saharan coasts of Africa welcomed the light of Christ, Saint Francis Xavier, Patron of the Missions, reached Japan . At the end of the eighteenth century and the beginning of the nineteenth, several laymen brought Christianity to Korea . In the same period, the proclamation of the Gospel reached Indochina as well as Australia and the islands of the Pacific. The nineteenth century witnessed vast missionary activity among the peoples of Africa . All these efforts bore fruit which has lasted up to the present day.
Serving people in more than 60 countries 
