[1] The Abbé Maurice Gaucheron (died 29 March 1951) was a priest serving at the famed Basilica of the Sacred Heart in the Montmartre sector of Paris, France, during the 1920s.
In the course of his ministry, he came to know a number of women who longed to become nuns but could not find a monastery which would accept them due to their health or physical handicaps.
[2] Gaucheron came to see in illness and physical fragility a means of following Jesus and thus a legitimate way of living the contemplative life.
[2] On 11 April 1930, Wrotnowska and several other women dedicated their lives to the future congregation in the course of a Mass in the crypt of the basilica at Montmartre.
They were formally created a religious institute in 1938 under the name of the Sisters of Jesus Crucified, and Mother Marie des Douleurs was elected the first prioress of the community.