To become a religious community . . .
 

The unexpected happened. While meditating the grace of La Salette and meeting the spiritual needs of the pilgrims, the missionaries were quickly led to a conversion in their own lives as well as in the life of their ministering group. In a founding letter written on August 4th, 1855, Father Denaz petitions Bishop Ginoulhiac for ' the religious with the three vows' (poverty, chastity, obedience). He is convinced that 'Our Lady of La Salette wants a congregation in keeping with the importance and the expansion of the work she herself came to initiate.' The vows of the religious life, first temporary and then perpetual, would endow the congregation with the elements needed for permanence and expansion. The La Salette message thus deepened and lived would become a remedy adapted to the evils devouring society. Religious women would live within the same spirit.

First vows were taken in 1858. That very year, Sylvain-Marie Giraud asked to join the Missionaries of Our Lady of La Salette. As a novice and later as a Master of Novices and Superior, he would make of this first generation a true religious community.

He would be helped by men of mettle such as Father Archier, Perrin, Chapuy, Henri and Jean Berthier. Filled with the grace of La Salette, it took these few men, they were eleven, a very short time to spread the message of La Salette into other Dioceses.

  ... to a missionary congregation

It is 1876 and Monseigneur Fava, a missionary Bishop (La Reunion, Zanzibar, Martinique), assumed the direction of the diocese of Grenoble. He wanted the community to become a true congregation. Following a plan drawn by Fr. Giraud, a book of constitutions was crafted together, point by point. The Superior General, Fr. Archier and his Council were elected. The Bishop favored the founding of an apostolic school, or minor seminary, to guarantee its own recruitment and its independence. Fr. Jean Bertheir became its first director. At this time, Bishop Bernard, Apostilic Prefect of Norway, was looking for missionaries. In 1878, Pope Leo XIII received the Bishop of Grenoble and Fr. Henri Berthier in an audience and proposed that the Constitutions of the Missionaries of La Salette be approved in Rome.

Everything came together in 1879: the consecration of the Basilica and the crowning of Our Lady of La Salette. The Norway mission was confided to the Missionaries of La Salette. Bishop Bernard even asked to enter the Congregation that had then become a pontifical congregation, a true Marian and missionary congregation.