The founder of the Oblates of the Virgin Mary, Venerable Bruno Lanteri, was born in 1759 in northern Italy. His homelife had a strong atmosphere of faith, but was also touched by deep sorrow. Losing his mother when he was only four, Bruno developed a strong love for Mary. His attraction to what he would later call silence and seclusion prompted Bruno to enter the Carthusians at the age of seventeen. His monastic life lasted only a week. After this experience, Bruno realized it was his vocation to become a diocesan priest.

While studying in Turin as a seminarian, Bruno met Fr. Nicholas von Diessbach. Under Diessbach's spiritual guidance, Lanteri developed a great love for the Holy Father and faithfulness to Church teaching. In 1781, at the age of twenty-two, Lanteri was ordained to the diaconate. The next year he received priestly ordination at the chapel of the Immaculate Conception of Mary in Turin.

For the next thirty years, Lanteri served the Church in the Piedmont region of Northern Italy. It was a turbulent era both in secular society and in the Church. In the secular sphere, the anti-Christian spirit of the French Revolution was running rampant. Among those who continued to practice religion, the Jansenist heresy obscured the truth of God's love, while other ideologies undermined the authority of the Pope. It was in this context that Lanteri met the Jesuit priest, Father Nikolaus von Diessbach. Under Diessbach, Lanteri made the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius and had a profound experience of the infinite mercy of God. He became an ardent witness to God's mercy through intense and varied apostolates as a diocesan priest in Turn. He preached the Spiritual Exercises, parish missions, offered spiritual direction and confession, circulated Catholic books, supported lay and priestly associations, and provided real care for the needy. In all this, he was always careful to guide people "to the truth in love", showing the utmost goodness to all and trying to help everyone to seek genuine holiness.

Central to the apostolate of Father Lanteri was his collaboration with certain groups called the Amicizie Cristiane (Christian Friendship) and the Amicizie Sacerdotale (Priestly Friendships) founded by Father von Diessbach. The Amicizie were something new to the times. They were groups of lay people and priests committed to a serious spiritual life, and to making an impact on the culture by circulating Catholic books. Father Lanteri guided and accompanied these groups for no less than thirty years.

In 1814, Lanteri met three zealous priests who were starting an apostolic work in Carignano. Very intent on reviving a Church that had been badly damaged by Napoleon, the three, nevertheless, needed some guidance. They looked to Lanteri for help. Lanteri shared with them his own apostolic and spiritual experience. Father Lanteri entrusted the group to the Virgin Mary, whom he always called their Foundress and teacher. Thus, the Oblates of Mary Most Holy began in 1816 as a diocesan congregation.

This small group was soon disbanded, but Lanteri continued his priestly work for many years. While on retreat, Lanteri received an inspiration from the Holy Spirit to re-found the congregation. The Oblates of the Virgin Mary received papal approval by Pope Leo XII on September 1, 1826. Fr. Lanteri died four years later August 5, 1830.

The Oblates of the Virgin Mary came to the United States on September 12, 1976. Since then, they have expanded with foundations in Massachusetts, Colorado, Illinois, California and even a new seminary and retreat center in Cebu, The Philippines.