The new congregation started to care for poor children and to serve in the hospitals. Once word of their work spread, the order was requested to start new communities in other cities of the region. Soon there were convents of the religious established in Venice (1812) and Milan (1816) as well as in Bergamo (1820) and Trent (1824). Magdalene drew up a Rule for the congregation, and it received pontifical approval from Pope Leo XII on 23 December 1828 in the papal brief "Si Nobis".