Father Louis-Marie Parent was born in 1910 in the area of Quebec City, Quebec (Canada). He entered the Oblates of Mary Immaculate, a religious congregation of priests, in 1931 and was ordained in 1937. The following year, he became a missionary in the north of the Province of Alberta, Canada.

In 1943, to extend spiritual support of priests in their missions, he founded in Alberta a community of contemplative religious, the Missionary Recluses. Ever attentive to signs from the Lord, guiding how he was to serve the Church, he founded, in 1952, a secular institute for women: the Oblate Missionaries of Mary Immaculate. The primary aim of this institute was to support the pressing needs of the Church in new, uncharted areas of its mission. These women established their first house in New Brunswick.

In 1958, at the request of the Superior General of the Oblate Fathers, he founded the Voluntas Dei Institute in Quebec. Initially the teams were made up of clerics and celibate laymen, but would, in 1974, open their doors to married Catholic couples as associate members.

For many years, Father Parent cherished in his heart the seed of life that became the Voluntas Dei Institute. God endowed him with an uncommon charism which oriented his sense of mission and blossomed into fruitful blessings in whatever works he undertook. However, it is within the richness and value of the spirituality of the three "5's" that we find the evangelical dynamism which he bequeathed to us.

Not only was he well known as a speaker but was an extraordinarily attentive listener. A renown author of several spiritual works, he is noted for his concrete and practical approach and for his simple, vivid and candid style. Today in his mid-nineties, he lives a quiet life of prayer in his religious community where he continues writing. In spite of his age, he nonetheless seizes every opportunity to meet with members of his institutes.