How could these prophetic prospects be realized? One could scarcely see how, and our Lady had not said. Sister Marie-Alphonsine was in an insoluble situation.

The Dilemma

On the one hand the request of Our Lady was quite formal; on the other hand it was inconceivable that this Sister should herself go ahead, bound as she was, by her vows, to a Congregation which she loved deeply, and which she had served for 20 years with devotedness and an apostolic success unanimously recognized. How could her superiors, who did not know anything of the heavenly communications and of the mission confided to her by the Mother of God, ever approve that which would inevitably be judged as a desertion? This thought tore the Sister apart interiorly.

Nevertheless, nothing, be it death itself or dishonour, would ever break her fidelity to Our Lady. Therefore she made this intimate decision:

"For the love of Mary and for her Honour, I resolved to obey her voice and to sacrifice myself for the sake of the Congregation of the Rosary, trusting in my Mother's help and certain that she will always accompany me."

She remembered then the prayer she had addressed to Mary three years earlier to choose her sister Hanneh, and the favourable answer she had received from the Virgin. However nothing happened there. On the contrary, her sister then 20 years old, had found a good match; she was on the point of being engaged to Elias GELAT, who later became the father of Bishop Mgr. Vincent Gelat, recently deceased in Jerusalem. Marie-Alphonsine was not discouraged; she renewed her pleading with Our Lady:

"Mother, she implored, accept my sister with me. Grant her the vocation to the Congregation of the Rosary. Be liberal with her; let her turn away from the world and give up her match."

The Divine Mother let herself be moved;

"I felt, writes Sister Marie-Alphonsine, that she acquiesced to my request. After holy Communion, I saw Jesus, the Spouse of my soul, accept my Sister Hanneh for his Spouse. I saw, I heard, I experienced the sweetness of his love. My heart rejoiced and my fears were calmed. I was sure that my sister was more capable than I and that she could help me much in this enterprise."

Nevertheless, the reality was there. The possibility of Hanneh Daniel's vocation in no way changed Sister Marie-Alphonsine's situation; her uneasiness was doubled with remorse. Moreover, something new happened which aggravated one and the other considerably:

"My heart was troubled. A voice said to me: Accomplish the will of your Mother. Then this, my sister Regina fell gravely ill with a dreadful sickness. I considered it as a punishment for having neglected my vocation to the Congregation of the Rosary because of my attachment to the Congregation of St. Joseph and to my own well being, fearing the suffering that would come upon me."

Yet, she felt bound to St. Joseph's. She was struggling in darkness. Where was God's will? Where was temptation? Perplexed, divided between two vocations, Sister Marie-Alphonsine oscillated not knowing where to give her preference.

"Now I made a decision, then I went back on it. I wanted to do something and I did not want to."

Ah: how good it would be to have a guide in such circumstances, to whom she could have recourse! What should she do? Go back to Don Belloni? Anyway, he was far too much taken up by his own foundations to take up this additional responsibility…..

And then the sickness of her sister came about so suddenly and made her anxiety almost unbearable. She prayed, she pleaded, imploring mercy. At last, one day, no longer able to bear any more, she fell on her knees and promised the Holy Virgin to fulfill her will, if she would heal her sister. Regina revived through a kind of prodigy. That was the Divine Mother's answer.

There was nothing more for Sister Marie-Alphonsine to do but to begin the needed proceedings to obtain from the Holy See the change of her religious status. But it was necessary first of all to obtain the support and authority of a director.

The new director

Future, there was the need of a qualified representative of the Church to take on the cause of the institution of the new Congregation. Once more, Sister Marie-Alphonsine turned to the Holy Virgin, and asked her to select for herself the director most pleasing to herself and to the work:
"I began to pray fervently, to practice great mortifications. I urged the girls to pray for me, and I asked my Mother to deign to indicate to me the person whom her love had chosen to institute such a Congregation."

This was the most delicate matter; she had suffered so much, the preceding year, from an improvised direction, that she desired the guarantee of Our Lady in person.

As to the Congregation, since it concerned a work which would have to remain exclusively oriental, destined for only the local vocations, it appeared indispensable she thought, that he who would have its direction, should also be an oriental, capable of understanding the mentality of those he would have to direct and form:

"I asked that the one chosen be one of us, Orientals. I prayed, I sighed, I wept and I said: "Mother, who is he? To whom shall I tell your secret?"

Mary had pity on so many tears. Her child had asked for a sign from her, for the lack of a name. A sign was given to her which was repeated seven times: she saw the priest Joseph Tannous bearing on his head a crown of stars of great brilliance. At the same time an interior voice was telling her that this was the director chosen by the Holy Virgin:

"I resolved to go to see him and to speak to him. But, at the moment of doing it, I felt too much confusion and I remained silent, while asking my Mother to come to my assistance. Alas! What torment it caused me this opening of my heart and this direction of conscience!"

While she was in such a state of hesitation, the Virgin appeared to her in a dream, carrying Jesus in her arms. Always these dreams full of meaning.

"I then said to her: 'Mother helps me; enlighten me!' she replied: 'Have you not yet understood that he whom I had shown you is the director I have chosen? Father Joseph Tannous on whose head I placed the crown of stars, is he whom I give you as director and organiser of the work. I will inspire him to interest himself in and to administer the Congregation of the Rosary.'''

The Sister was feeling very humble pleading the lack of consideration for Christians in this land under Turkish domination:

"Why have you chosen us," the Sister said, "the poor, powerless, the humiliated? Why do you not found this Congregation in Europe?" The Virgin answered smiling: "Remember, my daughter that roses bloom on thorns. It is in this land that I had my Joys, my Sorrows and my Glories. So it is in you and through you that I will manifest the strength of my arm."

These words raised up her courage: she went immediately to Don Tannous and opened her soul to him completely. Several other visions were granted her, concerning this priest and the role reserved to him in the foundation and in the government of the Congregation of the Rosary.

The Founder

Don Joseph Tannous was not unknown to Sister Marie-Alphonsine when he was indicated to her by the Holy Virgin.

He was born in 1838 at Nazareth, son of Tannous Khalil Yamine, who was the chief of the Latin Community; he accompanied his father in 1848 to person their respects to Mgr. Valerga, newly arrived as Patriarch.

Joseph Tannous was one of the first Seminarians, sent to be formed at Ghazir, Lebanon, in the 1849, and then recalled to Jerusalem when the seminary was opened in 1853. Ordained priest in 1863; he remained a long time in the seminary as a professor where he proved to be an excellent formator of the young. In 1866 he was called to Beirut by Mgr. Valerga in the capacity of secretary to the Apostolic delegation. In 1868 he became the chancellor of the Patriarchate and the following year the Patriarch took him as him as his secretary and the theologian to the Vatican Council. Finally in 1871 he was made Canon of the Holy Sepulchre.

This brilliant career did not prevent Don Tannous from exercising around him a very active apostolate. In Jerusalem he became a much sought after spiritual director of young girls. He was engaged particularly with the formation and guidance of the children of Mary, whose center was, right from its foundation, with the Sisters of St. Joseph of the Apparition. It is there that he met Sister Marie-Alphonsine many times. While really residing in Bethlehem she did not break off relations with the Parish School in Jerusalem where she continued to work with the Children of Mary group.

The first outlines of the work

In this environment, Father Tannous soon saw several young girls come to him through the influence of Sister Marie-Alphonsine. They belonged to the best Latin families of Jerusalem. Don Tannous, seeing them so ardently generous had no difficulty to get them involved in his own apostolate. He had them interested in their companions of the more modest conditions whose virtue was exposed to certain dangers because they had to look for work in places of doubtful reputation; even their faith was threatened by the solicitations of Protestants.

Our young apostles conceived the charitable project of establishing a large Catholic workshop, where these less fortunate young girls could earn their living sheltered from all dangers: "With a beautiful inexperience of the things of life," writes Canon Legrand. "They thought they could meet the initial expenses of this work through the sale of their jewelry."

If their inspiration was unrealistic, it was still noble. Its principle effect was to deepen in their hearts the spirit of abnegation and of devotedness to which was added fervent piety which Sister Marie-Alphonsine, on her part had assiduously fostered in them.

The young girls of Bethlehem also belonged to this group; they felt inspired to ask for the foundation of an Arab Religious Congregation, as has already been mentioned earlier. Their first attempt to open themselves to the parish priest of Bethlehem discouraged them so much that they would not speak about it to any other priest. However, they were gradually won over by the confidence Don Tannous inspired in them. They offered themselves to him and begged him to found a Congregation for the young women of the country.

This was not the thinking of Don Tannous; but he saw in the girls action an indication of Divine Providence.

He began to reflect on the project. His journeys to Europe made him come in close contact with the feminine role played by religious in the education of girls and in raising the status of women in these countries of the West. This same role had been undertaken by the Sisters of St. Joseph and the sisters of Our Lady of Sion with great devotedness in Jerusalem; but their role as foreigners prevented them sufficiently from entering as much as was necessary into the mentality of the country in order for their work to succeed in transforming the closed milieu where the oriental woman was still confined.

Besides, at the time when the Patriarch had just opened a number of country parishes in Palestine and in Transjordan, the action of the clergy itself, even though they were oriental, was met everywhere with the almost impossible obstacles created by Islam to keep the women in fierce isolation.

Only women could break through this obstacle. Women alone, only women possessing the same mentality as those women capable of living in the same poverty, but more endowed with abnegation and charity in every trial could be the efficacious agents of this liberation. In other words, there was a need for a Congregation of indigenous religious.

The spontaneous offer of the young girls came at a most appropriate time and seemed expressly inspired by the Spirit of God to realize adequately the goal that the church had proposed by restoring the Patriarchate.

Don Tannous, however, still hesitated; he asked himself what form to give to this new institution and under what name should it be introduced into the Church; it was just then that he received the confidence of Sister Marie-Alphonsine. All that he looked for was found in the revelations of this religious: the ideal, the form, the spirit, even the name. Don Tannous was dazzled. Meanwhile, he very prudently asked questions, tested the spirit of the Seer, of her visions and of their supernatural character.

He asked the Sister to prepare a project of the Constitutions according to what had been shown to her; and finally he gave the order to write down for him the complete account of the graces and requests of Our Lady in that which concerned, the Congregation. This was, as already stated, on 8 November, 1879.