It was in response to this hope of the Church as well as to this call of Pope Pius XII that the Voluntas Dei Institute was founded July 2, 1958.

A man of unshakable faith in Divine Providence, untiring apostle of the Gospel, man of prayer, priest of prophetic gestures, sought-after preacher, our Founder Father Louis-Marie Parent, OMI, is truly a 'man of the supernatural.'

When he gathered his first recruits together at Trois-Rivieres, Quebec on July 2, 1958, Father Parent's desire was to give to the Church Christians who would be ready to share in his own apostolic ambitions and Christian ideal in a real service to the Church; he also wanted to offer others a form of Christian commitment capable of irresistibly drawing everyone closer to God in order to celebrate and live together the joyous hope of our salvation in Jesus Christ.

After five years' experience as a 'Pious Union,' the Voluntas Dei Institute received its first approval from the Sacred Congregation for Religious May 31, 1963 as an 'Association of Perfection.' On Pentecost Sunday, June 6, 1965, this Association of Perfection was canonically elevated to the ranks of Secular Institutes. It is to the late Bishop J. Romeo Gagnon of Edmundston, New Brunswick that we owe this official recognition by the Church; it was Bishop Henri Routhier, OMI then Vicar Apostolic of Grouard, Alberta who blessed and encouraged the Institute's first steps. To these two great apostles of Jesus Christ we shall be forever grateful.