Journey: Fall 2000
Contents
?oe Three CSJs Make Final Vows
?oe CSJs Welcome Pre-Novice
?oe A Time for Remembering, a Time for Celebrating
?oe Eucharistic Congress Inspiring, Nourishing
?oe Ten CSJs Celebrate Jubilees
?oe Seeking God's Guidance in Daily Life
?oe The First CSJ Foundations in the U.S
?oe Your Dollars at Work
?oe We Offer Thanks and Praise
Three CSJs Make Final Vows
In two separate ceremonies, three members of the Congregation made their final declaration of commitment to the Sisters of St. Joseph.
On August 27, S. Julie Marie Kraemer and S. Leyla Cerda-Sanchez professed their vows at 1200 Mirabeau Avenue in New Orleans. The ceremony was conducted by Br. Louis Couvillon, SC, of New Orleans and Congregation president S. Lucy Silvio.
S. Julie, a native of Vacherie, LA, entered the Congregation in 1993. Since 1997, when she graduated from the University of New Orleans with a bachelorOs degree in elementary education, she has taught at Sacred Heart of Jesus School in Baton Rouge. S. Leyla, who was born in Nicaragua, has lived in the United States since 1979. She entered the Congregation in 1996. S. Leyla has ministered with Immigration Legal Services of Associated Catholic Charities, and worked as a financial associate for the Office of the Social Apostolate. She is now pursuing a career in campus ministry.
S. Juli Caron, a native of Marshall, MN, made her final vows on September 23 at the Marywood chapel in Crookston. The celebrant was Fr. Mike Foltz, pastor of St. JosephOs Catholic Church in Moorhead, where S. Juli is a parishioner. S. Juli is a chaplain in the oncology services at MeritCare Health System in Fargo.
CSJs Welcome Pre-Novice
In a liturgy and entrance ceremony held in St. OlafOs Church in Minneapolis, the Congregation received Kimberli Lawrence of Minneapolis as a pre-novice on July 22. Congregation president S. Lucy Silvio presided, with the assistance of vocations director S. Ileana Fernandez.
Joining Kim for the occasion were her parents, Thomas and Norma Lawrence, her brother and three sisters, and CSJs from the Twin Cities, as well as other family members and friends.
Before entering the Congregation, Kim had been employed by Pillsbury as a systems technical analyst. She is now undergoing a year of orientation at the CSJsO formation community on Mirabeau Avenue in New Orleans.
Thoughts on the Congregation's 350th Year
A
Time for Remembering, a Time for Celebrating
by Julie Sheatzley, CSJ
"There
is an appointed time for everything" (Eccles 3:1). Certainly
this 350th year of the life of the Congregation of the Sisters
of St. Joseph is a time for remembering. Remembering leads
us sisters along an inner pathway to our origins and illuminates
our identity. Reflecting on who we are as a congregation brings
the core of our being into communion with the passionately
loving women who were recognized officially as the first Sisters
of St. Joseph in Le Puy, France in 1650.
Dear Fran?ois Eyraud, Anna Brun, Anna Chalyer, Marguerite
Burdier, Anna Vey, and Claudia Chastel, we are one family
of sisters. We are joined across the centuries by the same
attraction and yearning: GodOs desire for union with every
creature. We cannot see your faces, but we know you as women,
who still live and breathe your lives every day in ours. You
were women whose faithful response to GodOs design compelled
you, like Jesus, to live with gracious abandon and abiding
trust the same mission that Jesus lived: "that all may be
one" (John 17:21) and "this double union of all people with
one another and with God" (Constitutions #9).
The bridge of time between us is long but consistently resilient
and strong. We know that this span is firmly grounded in the
lives of the successive generations who bore us through revolutions
in government, restrictive and renewing church councils, social
experiments, and scientific discoveries. You have come with
us through times of martyrdom and maturation, expulsion and
expansion, diminishment and discernment.
Dear, daring seventeenth-century women of Le Puy, we recall
that for more than 300 years we dressed like you. Many claimed
to know us by our distinctive dress. Always more important
than our garb, however, is the common grasp of the spiritual
gift connecting our kindred spirits and identifying us as
the Congregation of the Great Love of God: inclusive, loving
union with God and the dear neighbor-our mission and our "soul
attire"!
Remembering our origins brings us to this time, a time for
celebrating. This holy year gives us the special joy of celebrating
GodOs love made visible and credible among us in the lives
of our sister jubilarians, in the lives of those who have
recently pronounced their final vows, in the lives of those
journeying among us as associates, affiliates, novices, annually
vowed members. The life stream of human longing for the fulfillment
of GodOs design of loving union flows on, flows within us,
always seeking expression beyond us, beyond all boundaries.
Today, in 2000, the vibrant life force that animated the first
Sisters of St. Joseph continues its course in us. May we be
utterly open to the current of GodOs great love sweeping us
with them, with all our dear neighbors, with all creation,
into the Source. n
S. Julie Sheatzley is in pastoral ministry in three church
parishes in Clinton, LA.
Eucharistic
Congress Inspiring, Nourishing
by Pat Murphy, CSJ
On June 23-25, S. Pat attended the Eucharistic Congress conducted by the Diocese of Crookston in Bemidji, MN. Her report of that event follows here.
There was no doubt in anyoneOs mind that the Eucharistic Congress was a celebration of church at its best. The multicolored logo announced "Jubilee 2000! Healed, Nourished, Sent." All across the campus of Bemidji State University, there was evidence that much more than summer school was happening. More than 900 Catholics from the Diocese of Crookston gathered to celebrate their faith in solidarity with Pope John Paul II as he led the International Eucharistic Congress, held in Rome during the same weekend.
Bishop Victor Balke, of the Diocese of Crookston, opened the Congress with stirring words on reconciliation and forgiveness, because it is this attitude that prepares us to receive the body and blood of Jesus. His words followed sacred drumming by Native American elders from the two reservations in the diocese. A special guest was Bishop Donald Reece of the Diocese of St. John-Basseterre, Antigua, West Indies, who later joked that he had two reasons for coming to Crookston: to bring warm weather from the Caribbean, and to add color to the group.
S. Helen Prejean added more color the next day as she told the story of her initiation into prison ministry, her journey with men on death row, and, more recently, her advocacy against capital punishment worldwide. S. HelenOs simple but direct message challenged the group to think about the forgiveness of Jesus and to ask how, in the United States, we can continue to accept murder as a solution to murder.
S. HelenOs description of forgiveness on the part of the victimized families reinforced the conviction that forgiveness comes from God. Her story of Lloyd LeBlanc, praying the "Our Father" upon hearing of his daughterOs murder, brought tears to the eyes of the hundreds of Minnesota listeners.
S. HelenOs heartfelt conviction about the power of forgiveness was echoed and magnified by Bud Welch of Oklahoma City, who addressed two workshop groups and witnessed to the entire group during the penance service. Bud told of his conversion from deep anger to authentic forgiveness of Timothy McVeigh, the bomber of the Federal Building, where his daughter Julie worked and in which she was killed in the explosion on April 19, 1997.
The 30 or more workshops and S. HelenOs signing of Dead Man Walking emphasized the theme "Healed, Nourished, Sent!" Pledge sheets calling for a moratorium on the death penalty were signed throughout the weekend.
Sunday morningOs keynote talk by Abbot Timothy Kelly brought the sacrament and reality of the Eucharist into peopleOs daily lives. Fr. Timothy discussed how the Body of Christ is one: the sacramental bread, the baptized, the searcher.
The image of church was expanded to include the dioceses in the Caribbean. Bishop Reece described his diocese as nine islands that had much natural beauty but also faced many challenges due to corrupt politics and unfair business practices. At the conclusion of his talk, Bishop Reece said that as a Caribbean man, he just had to sing. Ending his remarks with a solo, "No One Is an Island," he then invited the Church of Crookston to sing with him. The Diocese of St. John-Basseterre may soon become a sister diocese of the Diocese of Crookston.
The climax of the Eucharistic Congress was a magnificent celebration of the sacrament of JesusO body and blood. The Church of Crookston at worship was the Body of Christ, then and as the dismissal resounded: "Go! Be healed, nourished, and sent!"
No one may ever know the far-reaching effects of the Congress, nor how many personal conversions it may have caused. One thing is certain: the people who gathered for Jubilee 2000 went home as very different people. On Sunday morning, a man who had participated in the penance service on Saturday evening told the Congress coordinator that his marriage, which was on the rocks, had been renewed and strengthened by the graces he received during the reconciliation service. Certainly this is a story of being "healed, nourished, and sent."
Ten CSJs Celebrate Jubilees
The Congregation's 350th anniversary is also a special year for 10 CSJs from all areas, who were honored in liturgies held throughout the summer and fall.
South
At St. Joseph Cathedral in Baton Rouge, on October 15, five
sisters celebrated a total of 260 years of religious profession:
S. Gertrude (Marie Louise) Dupuy, 60 years, and Ss. Carolyn
(Irene Marie) Brady, Esther (Patricia Ann) Hulin, Therese
(Mary Clement) St. Pierre, and Shirley Tousignant, 50 years.
Ss. Carolyn, Esther, Therese, and Shirley entered the novitiate
in 1948 and made their first profession in 1950.
S. Gertrude entered in New Orleans in 1938 and professed her
first vows in August 1940. She earned a BS at Loyola New Orleans,
and took additional courses at Incarnate Word College in San
Antonio and the University of Cincinnati. Her 60 years of
ministry began at St. Joseph Academy and St. Joseph Parochial
in Baton Rouge and continued at Holy Rosary, St. Rose, St.
Joseph Academy, and St. Frances Cabrini in New Orleans; at
Guardian Angels in Cincinnati; at St. Rita's in Harahan (LA);
and at Our Lady of the Gulf in Bay St. Louis (MS). S. Gertrude
also worked in guidance and served on the Provincial Council
of the Sisters of St. Joseph. She continues to minister through
community service at St. Joseph's Convent and the People Program
in New Orleans.
S. Carolyn Brady earned a BS from Loyola New Orleans and an MS from the University of Notre Dame. She has taught and administered in New Orleans at St. Ann School, St. Rose of Lima, and Our Lady of the Rosary, and at St. Joseph Academy in Bay St. Louis and in Baton Rouge. She also served as development director at St. Alphonsus School in Greenwell Springs (LA) and as provincial and associate treasurer. S. Carolyn is currently the CSJ development director for the South.
S. Esther Hulin earned degrees at Loyola New Orleans, Xavier University in Cincinnati, and Loyola Chicago, and has taken addition courses at Notre Dame Seminary in New Orleans, Nicholls State University in Thibodaux (LA), Tulane University, St. Louis University, and the University of Notre Dame. She has taught or served as administrator in Catholic schools for 50 years, beginning in 1950 at Our Lady of the Rosary in New Orleans. Other assignments included St. Joseph Parochial and Sacred Heart in Baton Rouge, St. Ignatius in Grand Coteau (LA), Guardian Angels School and McNicholas High School in Cincinnati, St. Frances Cabrini in New Orleans, St. Rita's in Harahan, and O'Connell High School in Galveston. Since 1985 S. Esther has served as principal at St. Alphonsus Elementary School in Greenwell Springs (LA).
S.
Therese St. Pierre holds a BS degree from Loyola New Orleans
and took further courses at Xavier University in New Orleans
and the College of St. Catherine in Minnesota. S. Therese
has ministered as an elementary school teacher at St. Rose,
Holy Rosary, St. Alphonsus, and St. Pius X in New Orleans,
at Sacred Heart and St. George in Baton Rouge, and at St.
Rita's in Harahan. She also lived for six years in the St.
Thomas Housing Development in New Orleans and taught adults
and preschoolers at Hope House, a center for social justice.
S. Therese is currently teaching at Sacred Heart School in
Baton Rouge.
S. Shirley Tousignant, a native of Detroit, is a graduate
of the College of St. Catherine in Minnesota. She began teaching
at St. Rose of Lima School in Argyle (MN) and continued at
St. Richard's in Richfield (MN), St. Joseph's in West St.
Paul, St. Ann's in Somerset (WI), and St. Louis School in
Superior (WI). In the mid-1970s she began pastoral ministry
at St. James Religious Center and St. Michael's Parish in
Grand Forks (ND), St. Mary's Mission in Dunseith (ND), Resurrection
Parish in Evelyth (MN), and St. Mary's Parish in St. Petersburg
(FL). Currently S. Shirley is working as a reading specialist
in the public schools in Pinellas County (FL).
North
S. Sylvia Perrault celebrated 60 years as a CSJ on August
19 at the Church of St. Michael in Stillwater, MN. She entered
in Crookston in 1939 and, in keeping with CSJ practice at
that time, was sent to the motherhouse at Bourg for formation.
War was declared in France later that year; as a result, S.
Sylvia remained in France until 1946. During the war years,
she saved chalices and other religious articles from the Nazis.
Upon returning to the United States, S. Sylvia spent several years cooking and caring for schoolchildren at St. Joseph's Academy in Crookston and in Rainy River, Ontario. Her ministries then took her to North Dakota, first for 16 years at St. Mary's Indian Mission and then for 17 years as a caregiver for mentally handicapped persons at San Haven state home in North Dakota. Since 1987, when she returned to Stillwater, S. Sylvia has cared for homebound persons in St. Michael's Parish.
S. Elaine Dufresne celebrated her 50th anniversary of vows at St. Ann Church, Somerset, on July 8. S. Elaine professed her first vows on March 21, 1950 at St. Joseph's Academy Chapel in Crookston. She has taught at St. Boniface, Stewart (MN), at St. Louis, Superior, and St. Joseph's Academy and Mount St. Benedict, Crookston, and was part of provincial leadership for eight years. S. Elaine also has ministered as chaplain at St. Joseph's Hospital and the Park Rapids Area Hospice in Park Rapids (MN); at the MeritCare Hospital and the Roger Maris Cancer Center in Fargo; and at the Walker Southview Residence in Minneapolis. S. Elaine currently is working in vocation ministry for the North and is establishing a house of hospitality in Woodbury (MN) with Ss. Della Boucher and Mary Ellen Proulx.
Central
At a liturgy celebrated on September 8 at Guardian Angels
Church in Cincinnati, three CSJs were honored for 50 years
of religious life: Ss. Elaine Beimische, Joan Hartlaub, and
Christine Leuck.
S. Elaine Beimische, a native of Cincinnati, earned a bachelor's degree in education from Our Lady of Cincinnati College (now Xavier University) and a master's from Xavier University. She taught at local schools: Guardian Angels, Immaculate Heart of Mary, St. Mary's (all elementary schools), and at McNicholas High School. From 1969 to 1977 she served as provincial for the Cincinnati Province. Later she ministered on the pastoral team for St. Thomas More Church in Withamsville (OH), and then was a pastoral minister in Greenville (OH).
S. Joan Hartlaub was born in Cincinnati, received a bachelor's degree at Our Lady of Cincinnati College, and earned a master's in theology at the University of Notre Dame. She taught at St. Joseph Academy in New Orleans and at several schools in or near Cincinnati: St. Thomas More, Guardian Angels, and St. Augustine elementary schools and McNicholas High School. From 1969 to 1971 she served as administrator at the Fontbonne residence for women in Cincinnati. Later she was a campus minister at Sinclair College in Dayton (OH) and at Auraria College in Denver. In 1993 S. Joan returned to McNicholas High School, where she served as guidance counselor. In the following year she was elected to the Congregation's General Council. Currently S. Joan is alumni director for McNicholas.
S. Christine Leuck, a native of Ambia, IN, received a bachelor's degree in education from Our Lady of Cincinnati College and studied art at the University of Cincinnati. She taught in Baton Rouge, Bay St. Louis, and Cincinnati, and also ministered at the Fontbonne residence for women. S. Christine now lives at Mercy St. Theresa in Mariemont (OH).
Viewpoint on Spirituality
Seeking
God's Guidance in Daily Life
by Marie Schwan, CSJ
How do I know what God wants for me? How do I live more in conformity with God's will for me in the ordinary events that make up my life? Am I generous enough? Loving enough? Strict enough with my children?
Hardly a weekend retreat passes without some retreatant pondering these and like questions aloud in my presence.
These are good people seeking to do the will of God, good people who are daily bombarded with images, suggestions, invitations that pull them one way and the other. "How do I figure it out?" they ask. "Is there some self-help book out there that will tell me what to do?"
On the last morning of a weekend retreat it is our custom at the Jesuit Retreat House in Oshkosh to include the following as part of our morning prayer:
Help us in the days ahead to be clear-sighted in mind and heart, and to be filled with enthusiasm for a deepening knowledge and love of Christ, so that we will follow the pattern of His life and make all our decisions in the light of His way. Amen.
In the Spiritual Exercises, St. Ignatius of Loyola, founder of the Jesuits, offers a step-by-step process for discerning God's will in major decisions of life, as (for example) choosing a state of life such as marriage, priesthood, or single or religious life.
In the first week or section of the exercises, the retreatant becomes aware of the obstacles he or she places to living in union with God. In the second week that knowledge and love is deepened in the prayer to grow in identification with Christ: "to know Him more intimately, to love Him more deeply, to follow Him more closely." The discernment becomes clearer and the retreatant moves toward a decision in the light of this deepening knowledge and love of Christ.
This deepening knowledge and love for Christ is the key, I believe, to making the important though less dramatic decisions that make up the ordinary flow of daily lives. There is no "self-help" book or person out there to dictate what we "should" do. What Ignatius wanted for his followers, and what we need, is a vibrant and personal relationship with God in Jesus. Also, there is no "quick fix" method, no shortcut, to a personal friendship with God.
Living our lives responsibly requires a growing knowledge of God as shown us in the life of Jesus. Nothing can replace the regular, if not daily, reading of the life of Jesus as given to us in the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. An annual retreat can afford a person the quiet for absorbing the good news and an opportunity for retreat talks that personalize the Gospel.
Today we are also blessed with good books that help us to understand the gospels, the life of Christ, His times, His culture—not so different from our own in many ways! Albert Nolan's Jesus Before Christianity (Orbis), William Barry, SJ's Who Do You Say I Am? (Ave Maria Press), and a number of others are available and readable for those of us who are not professional theologians. Even a "folksy" book like Joseph F. Girzone's Joshua (Macmillan) can lead us to fresh insight into Jesus and His mission.
Christian decision making comes only in the context of the love of God, and love comes through spending time with God. So, again, regular (if not daily) time spent in prayer is the way to foster a relationship with Christ that will draw us into an ever-deeper intimacy of love and service in the spirit of Jesus.
Prayer can be as simple as talking to Him about what you have read in the Gospel, or asking Him questions, or sharing with Him your doubts, your fears, your joys, your hopes, and then listening as you sit quietly in His presence.
As our relationship with Christ deepens, so do our own values, and our sensitivity to what is and what is not of God. Then we know and we do what God desires of us. The simple, yet profound, fact is that our image of and experience of God shape our lives. "Walk in my presence and you will be wholehearted" (Gen 17:1). What was true for Abraham continues to be true for us.
This article first appeared in the spring/summer 2000 issue of Jesuit Journeys. To contact S. Marie, write her at Jesuit Retreat House, 4800 Fahrnwald Rd., Oshkosh, WI 54902-7598; phone 920-231-9060; e-mail jrhouse@execpc.com.
The
First CSJ Foundations in the U.S.
by
Jane Aucoin, CSJ
In the last issue of Journey we traced the reweaving of the "little design" for the "Congregation of God's great love" and the foundation of a motherhouse at Bourg-en-Bresse in southeastern France. This final portion of the Congregation's history describes the first foundations of Bourg CSJs in the United States. These communities, strung out along the Mississippi and Ohio Rivers, much later became the present Medaille Congregation.
Mississippi
and Louisiana
In the early 1850s, some 30 years after the establishment
of the CSJs of Bourg, a missionary priest from Mississippi,
Stanislaus Buteux, appealed to Bishop Chalandon of Belley
for help. Providentially he had met Bishop Chalandon some
years earlier on a trolley in Paris. He now needed sisters
to assist in his missionary work. Three sisters from Bourg
were chosen for a foundation in Natchez: Mother Eulalie Thamet,
S. Anatolie Charton, and S. Marie de Gonzague Navatier, who
had not yet made perpetual vows.
On December 30, 1854, after an ocean voyage of 41 days, the sisters arrived in New Orleans. Both the Bishop of Natchez and Father Buteux welcomed them at dockside. The sisters learned that they were destined not for Natchez but for Bay St. Louis, a small village near the Gulf of Mexico. Another group of sisters who had made the same voyage from France were to go to Natchez. This was evidence, once more, of providential care: the Natchez foundation did not survive.
After a week's rest at the Ursuline Convent, the three pioneers set out for Bay St. Louis, where they found a small four-room house prepared for them. There they discovered that the school they were to open was in Waveland, some four miles distant. For the next several months they walked there every day through the woods, going barefoot to save their shoes, until they could arrange for classes in their house at the Bay.
These sisters were physically and emotionally unprepared for the challenges facing them: the new language ("this miserable English," as Mother Eulalie described it); a rough-and-ready pioneering society with few Catholics; the high cost of everything; a tropical climate with vicious attacks by mosquitoes and sand flies; and above all the sense of isolation, and even a feeling of abandonment, by their beloved French motherhouse. These proved too much for young S. Marie, who returned to France within the year.
The others, though, had the spiritual vigor to stay the course. On January 6, 1855, the very day they arrived at Bay St. Louis, Mother Eulalie wrote: "It was through poverty, labor, and the Cross that the apostles converted the world....Life is short. The Lord is with us, and long live Holy Poverty!"
In time, as the numbers of both French and native-born American sisters increased, the CSJs opened convents in Louisiana, notably in New Orleans, Baton Rouge, and New Roads. Ministries focused on education and catechesis for whites, blacks, and native Americans; for rich and poor; for girls and boys; for boarders, orphans, and day students. Visiting and caring for the sick and the poor was a constant effort. Prison ministry began in 1872.
Ohio
It now seems obvious that the weaving of the "little design,"
especially in America, depended on providential encounters.
In 1892 Mother Albina Thollot, superior in Baton Rouge, was
returning from a brief sojourn in France. She stopped in Cincinnati
to greet the city's archbishop, William H. Elder, whom she
had known as the bishop of Natchez.
At that meeting, Archbishop Elder mentioned the Sacred Heart Home and its founder, Miss Margaret McCabe. The Home was staffed by a group of pious women, and it provided a downtown residence for young women who came to the big city seeking employment in its shops and offices. Miss McCabe was looking for a religious community to take over her work, and many of her staff wished to become religious.
Negotiations were soon under way between "Ms. Margaret," as the Cincinnati sisters liked to call her, the Bourg superior general, and the superiors in New Orleans. The outcome was an agreement that passed the ownership and administration of the Home, including its $26,543 debt, into the hands of the CSJs of New Orleans. The nine women who wished to become Sisters of St. Joseph were admitted, and made vows two years later. In 1893 Mother Maria Manning arrived from New Orleans as the first superior.
Soon after that, the sisters purchased a small farm on the outskirts of the city, in the village of Cedar Point, which today is incorporated into Cincinnati as Mount Washington. The farm was intended to furnish provisions for the Home and to serve as a summer vacation spot for the young women there. A school, forerunner of Guardian Angels Parochial School, opened at Cedar Point in 1895, and a novitiate was established in 1902.
The early years at Cedar Point were hard, for the sisters were not used to farming. Without the generosity of neighboring farmers, the difficulties might well have proved insurmountable. Also, they faced the constant struggle to pay off the Home's debt. As notes came due, it was often a case of "borrowing from Peter to pay Paul." And yet the "little design," and those who wove it so faithfully, survived and thrived. In addition to operating the Home, which later changed its location and was renamed the Fontbonne Residence for Women, the sisters in the Cincinnati region excelled in education and catechetics.
Minnesota
In the early 1900s the French government enacted the "Laws
of Secularization," which banned religious from classrooms.
In one action, teaching sisters were expelled from schools
and were forced to return to the motherhouse in Bourg. Some
500 arrived in one day alone, with little hope of finding
a livelihood in France. During the next several years, sisters
were sent from Bourg to Switzerland, Belgium, Luxembourg,
England, Italy, and the United States, which received some
60 CSJs in two years.
During this troubling period, a letter arrived from Fr. Joseph Barras, a parish priest in Argyle, MN, asking for sisters to staff a school in this small town near the Canadian border. Six sisters were quickly chosen for this mission: Mother Marie Jeanne Humbert and Ss. Louise Clotilde Carlet, Salesia Beaudier, Aimee des Anges Bourgeois, Marie Ursule Daude, and St. Hilde Monnet. Passage to New York was arranged promptly, and on August 9, 1903 the sisters wired to notify Father Barras of their arrival.
They were stunned when they received this message in return: "Go no further. Go to one of your houses until the Bishop of Duluth shall have seen your Constitutions, and shall have accepted you." Father Barras had failed to seek his bishop's permission before extending the invitation!
Without hesitation, after only a few days of rest and despite their lack of English, the sisters boarded a train for the three-day trip to Salix, IA, where a community of Bourg CSJs had been established in 1900. From Salix they sent a copy of the CSJ Constitutions to James McGolrick, Bishop of Duluth.
Sometime later, Father Barras wrote: "The hills are leveled, difficulties have vanished. My people are rejoicing as they await your coming. Come!" The "Come," though, was addressed only to Mother Marie Jeanne, who was thus summoned to Duluth to see the bishop.
When Bishop McGolrick finally realized that the Sisters had come from Bourg, his caution evaporated. Both he and his chancellor, Fr. Timothy Corbett, had attended the minor seminary at Meximieux in the diocese of Bourg, where Sisters of St. Joseph managed the infirmary. The sisters' love and kindness had made an indelible impression on those transplanted young Americans. They reasoned that if the sisters whom Father Barras had invited were indeed from Bourg, they had nothing to fear. They didn't need to read their Constitutions. Finally the community was allowed proceed to Argyle, where they were welcomed warmly and jubilantly, in French, by the priest and the people.
When they entered the house and the school, the sisters learned again how Fr. Barras tended to exaggerate. His written assurances that "all is ready" were not quite exact. Though the sisters found some classroom materials, there was not a bed, not a chair. Fr. Barras had assumed that they would bring their own furniture. Sister Aimee later wrote: "In the kitchen there is an old stove, a few plates...but none of the utensils needed for housekeeping....Tears came to the eyes of dear Mother Jeanne. But not for long. She went immediately to the store to purchase what was needed....Thanks to her determination and to her admirable spirit of organization, we could lie in beds that night."
The sisters soon learned that the house had no running water, the well was insufficient, and there was no heating system. The opening of school had to be delayed, but only by eight days, while a heating system, an absolute essential, was installed. By October, Mother Jeanne was able to write: "I really believe the mission has a future....The school months bring in little income so far. What will support us are the fine arts, painting, music, private French lessons, and sewing; above all, the boarders. I am expecting three next week." And in November she wrote: "In spite of everything, we are happy."
The sisters' happiness was contagious. American women joined them, and soon their educational ministries expanded to Crookston, a growing railroad center. Later they established schools in Wisconsin, the Twin Cities, and southern Canada. Health care and ministry to Native Americans followed.
S. Jane Aucoin is an archivist for the Congregation. This article is the last of a four-part series on the CSJs' history, written in honor of their 350th anniversary. Details about the sources of information are available on request.
Your
Dollars at Work
by Bert Lieux, CSJ
During the past fiscal year, July 1, 1999-June 30, 2000, we were able to renovate a section of the Mirabeau Avenue building in New Orleans for the novitiate, the residence for women who are studying to become Sisters of St. Joseph. An elevator was installed to accommodate retired sisters living in the same building.
Renovations to the building at Marywood (Crookston, MN) continue and should be completed at the end of the year. The elevator has been installed, and the day care center is in full operation.
A hospitality house for women seeking to learn more about the CSJs has been purchased in Woodbury, MN.
From our special Justice Fund, we have distributed $51,705 to various groups in need of assistance: Act (New Orleans), a leadership training program; Ciudad Sandino/Cantera (Nicaragua); Myriam's House (Baton Rouge), a center for rehabilitating women and training them in skills; the Incarnate Word Cultural Enrichment Center (New Orleans), which provides training in the arts; St. John the Baptist and St. Mary of the Angels Adult Education (New Orleans); Our Lady of Lourdes and St. Louis Centers for Senior Citizens (New Orleans); St. Philip Center and "Witness Hands On" youth programs (New Orleans); St. Paul Center (Baton Rouge), an education and job training center; Tri-State Guadalupe Leadership Training (Morehead, MN); Batahola, a suburb of Managua (Nicaragua); Henrietta DeLille Middle School (New Orleans); the Open Arms Program (Minneapolis); ReStoc (Cincinnati), a low-income housing rehabilitation program; and Kids Café (New Orleans), which provides food for 150 children.
Every year we try to increase our Retirement Fund by adding to savings through events such as the New Orleans Gala, St. Joseph Guild activities, and donations from the annual appeal.
Without our faithful friends and donors, we would never be able to serve the needs of so many people. Our gratitude and prayers are with you and your families each day.
S. Bert Lieux is the Congregational Advancement Director.
We
Offer Thanks and Praise
by Caroline Benken, CSJ
Gratitude is a form of prayer and is often connected to the act of praising God. How often we pray in the liturgy, perhaps without too much thought, "We give you thanks and praise." We remember the people in the Gospel who broke out in joyful praise of God when they witnessed a cure that Jesus worked in their presence. The poor and humble had no doubts about the source of Jesus' powerful gifts.
Gratitude is a humble recognition that our needs are constantly cared for through the sharing of God's graciousness as distributed through the Body of Christ. God has spread his gifts out among all the peoples of the earth and wants us to keep giving them to one another. In the giving of ourselves and our gifts to one another, we come to experience the joy that the love which is God is in our very own hearts.
As Sisters of St. Joseph we give thanks and praise to God for the many of you, our friends and benefactors, who reveal God's love to us by your generous sharing with us of the gifts God has given to you. May we continue to witness to one another the abundance of God's goodness as we pass our gifts on to one another.
S. Caroline Benken is a General Councilor for the CSJs, and as such is responsible for the Congregation's foreign missions and various sponsored ministries.