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OUR BEGINNING IN FRANCE

The birthplace of the Sisters of St. Joseph is the Massif region of south-central France. Located in the center of this region, Le Puy-en-Velay had been the center of Marian pilgrimages since early medieval times and a crossroads for the exchange of culture between Catholic France and Muslim Spain. In the mid-seventeenth century, this area was a world torn asunder by the divisive wars of religion between Catholics and Huguenots. Added to that were economic depression, social inequities based on class distinction, lawlessness, hunger and famine, heavy and unjust taxation on the poor, and the ills common to society of any generation. 

Jean Pierre Médaille (1610-1669), founder of the Sisters of St. Joseph, was born in Carcassone. He entered the Society of Jesus at Toulouse in 1626 and was ordained in 1637. He succeeded St. John Francis Regis, SJ, as the apostle of the Velay. Médaille's ministry within the Society of Jesus concentrated on two areas: service to the Society and missions in the Velay. As a missionary he began, possibly as early as 1644, to encounter pious women who desired to give their lives to God and to help the poor.

THE BIRTH OF AN IDEA

These women were not called to monastic life, or lacked the financial resources required by established monasteries of the time. For them, Médaille outlined a way of life inspired by his own Jesuit background. He advocated a life consecrated to God but lived in the world and devoted to the apostolic project of communicating the word of God and serving others, whom he called "the dear neighbor." During his lifetime, groups were established in the dioceses of Le Puy, Clermont and Viviers as well as the archdioceses of Lyon and Vienne. It is the foundation in the city of Le Puy, however, that is generally recognized as the origin of the Sisters of St. Joseph.

THE DAUGHTERS OF ST. JOSEPH

On March 10, 1651, Henri de Maupas, Bishop of Le Puy, granted official ecclesiastical permission for the existence of a congregation of women under the title "Daughters of St. Joseph." On December 13 of that year, six Daughters of St. Joseph formed a legal contract, the Act of Association, by which they formed a community among themselves in regard to living and possessions.

The Daughters of St. Joseph were simple, hard-working women who earned their living by making lace and ribbon. Most were illiterate; only one of the six could sign her name to the contract. Nevertheless, they were part of a new form of religious life which would profoundly affect both the church and society.

The Daughters of St. Joseph were founded with an apostolic vision of consecrated life lived in the world rather than in a cloister. Their roots were from the common people. They were to live among the people in anonymity, be indistinguishable from them by their dress, and earn their own living.

As part of his spiritual legacy to the Daughters of St. Joseph, Médaille left certain key writings: the Maxims of Perfection, the Règlements, the Primitive Constitutions, the Maxims of the Little Institute and the Eucharistic Letter. From these texts, its charism--the personality of the congregation--emerges. Among the many themes comprising the charism, and central to it, are great love of God, humility and charity, zeal in exercise of all the works of mercy, and service to the neighbor without distinction. Most important of all was the union of the sisters with God, among themselves, and with the neighbor. Ministry to and with the "dear neighbor" was a key component of their lives. In the founder's writings there is an undercurrent of searching and the quest for excellence. There is always more to do, more to be, for the love of God and neighbor.
 
From the early days of the congregation until the onslaught of the French Revolution in 1789, there was no central government. The houses of the congregation were autonomous. Sisters attached to these houses ministered within the parish, city or town in which they lived. The sisters directed Confraternities of Mercy in which they worked with lay women in ministering to the material and spiritual needs of the vicinity. They instructed young women and girls in the elements of religion and in how to make a living by lace and ribbon making. They conducted "hospitals," which in the seventeenth century were shelters for all the needy and afflicted of the day: the mentally ill, physically ill, vagrants, prostitutes, orphans, the elderly, the homeless and anyone ground to the dust by economic poverty.

DARK DAYS OF THE FRENCH REVOLUTION

The French Revolution violently disrupted the lives of the Daughter of St. Joseph. All but a few of the sisters refused to take the Oath of the Civil Constitution of the Clergy, remaining loyal to the church and to the clergy who refused the oath. The congregation was outlawed, the right to teach was withdrawn and the sisters were denounced as unpatriotic, fanatics, and enemies of the people and the revolution. During the Reign of Terror, nearly all the sisters at Le Puy were imprisoned and the community was expelled from their property for over twenty years. Sisters were brought before kangaroo courts, imprisoned on false charges without trial, and some were guillotined. Those who escaped the wrath of the revolution returned to their families, went into hiding or simply disappeared into French society. 

RE-EMERGENCE OF THE CONGREGATION

As the Reign of Terror abated, the sisters gradually and quietly began to emerge from hiding and resumed religious life in their former houses or elsewhere. One of the most important regroupings to occur after the revolution was in the diocese of Lyon. Sister St. John Fontbonne had been the superior at the house of Monistrol in the diocese of Le Puy when it was dispersed in 1792. She and her sister returned to their parental home in Bas. Since Monistrol was not reorganized immediately after the revolution, Mother St. John re-founded the congregation in Saint-Etienne, a city about thirty-five miles southwest of Lyon. A group of women known as the "Black Daughters," some of them former nuns, lived a very austere existence there and wished to constitute themselves as a contemplative community.

Cardinal Joseph Fesch of Lyon decided, however, that the "Black Daughters" should become an apostolic congregation. Mother St. John Fontbonne was recommended to Cardinal Fesch to form these women into the Sisters of St. Joseph and she assumed the direction of the group. On July 14, 1808, seventeen "Black Daughters" received the habit of the Sisters of St. Joseph. The following year, seven more women from a similar community were received by Mother St. John.

GROWTH OF THE CONGREGATION IN FRANCE

This was the nucleus of the congregation which purchased property in Lyon in 1815 and first occupied it in 1816. During this period the laws of Napoleonic France, rather than the spirit and custom of the congregation, introduced centralized government to the Sisters of St. Joseph. Houses within dioceses were attached to a central house which determined governance, appointed personnel, adopted constitutions and established norms for community living.

Lyon was not the only house of the congregation reorganized after the French Revolution. The sisters returned to Le Puy in 1815 and to many of their other foundations during this time. From the motherhouse in Lyon, five other independent French congregations were established in Chambéry, Bourg, Annecy, Gap and Bordeaux. The first community was established outside France at Turin, Italy, in 1821.

SISTERS IN THE NEW WORLD

The sisters' first overseas missionary endeavor was undertaken at the request of Bishop Joseph Rosati, Congregation of the Mission, in the diocese of St. Louis, Missouri with the financial assistance of a wealthy French widow, the Countess de la Rochejaquelein. Six sisters arrived in St. Louis in 1836. In April of that year, the sisters opened their first house across the river from St. Louis in Cahokia, Illinois. Six months later, they established their first permanent home in a log cabin at Carondelet, six miles south of St. Louis. This log cabin served as their convent, school and orphanage. Two sisters who remained in France to learn the language of the deaf joined the American foundation in 1837. Their school for the deaf was also was housed in the log cabin.

Thirty-nine sisters from Moûtiers became part of the congregation of Carondelet. Most congregations of Sisters of St. Joseph in the United States trace their origin to this initial foundation, although other French congregations also made foundations in America.  Bourg established the provinces of New Orleans and Crookston, Minnesota. Eventually, the Cincinnati, Ohio, province was formed from the New Orleans province. Le Puy sent sisters to St. Augustine, Florida, and Fall River, Massachusetts. West Hartford, Connecticut, remains a province of Chambéry and Winslow, Maine, is a province of Lyon. 

The sisters who settled in Carondelet quickly assimilated and became part of the American church and American society. By the time of the Civil War, sisters were in Philadelphia and Erie, Pennsylvania; St. Paul, Minnesota; Wheeling, West Virginia; Buffalo and Flushing, New York; and Canada. They started academies, taught parochial schools, conducted schools for freed slaves, opened hospitals, mothered orphans and instructed the deaf. During the Civil War, they served as nurses who cared for the wounded of both the Union and Confederate armies.

Following the Civil War, the congregation continued to spread and new motherhouses were established. One means through which a congregation came into existence was through the creation of new dioceses and the redrawing of diocesan boundaries. It was this redistricting that brought the Sisters of St. Joseph of Wichita into existence.

THE SISTERS ARRIVE IN KANSAS

In 1883, Mother Stanislaus Leary of Rochester, New York stopped in Kansas en route to Arizona. At the urging of Bishop Louis Mary Fink, Order of St. Benedict in Leavenworth, she abandoned her plans. She went first to Newton and later to Concordia, where she established a motherhouse. In 1886 Sister Bernard Sheridan of the Erie, Pennsylvania, congregation joined the new congregation in Concordia.

In the summer of 1887, Bishop Fink asked Mother Stanislaus to send sisters to Abilene, Kansas, to staff St. Andrew parochial school and to build an academy.  Mother Stanislaus sent Sister Bernard along with Sisters Armella McGrath, Domitilla Gannon, Angela Costello and Amelia Fitzgibbon, followed by Sister Sebastian Collins in May of 1888.

In the fall of 1887, word was received from Rome that the state of Kansas had been divided into dioceses. In addition to Leavenworth, episcopal cities were now established in Wichita and Concordia. Abilene was in the Leavenworth diocese. At the direction of Bishop Fink, who did not wish to lose the sisters from his diocese, the Abilene sisters constituted themselves a separate congregation with an act of incorporation of March 25, 1888. Sisters Angela and Amelia chose to return to Concordia. Sister Bernard Sheridan along with Sisters Domitilla, Armella and Sebastian formed the nucleus of the new congregation.

MOTHER BERNARD SHERIDAN

Mother Bernard Sheridan, née Jeanne Sheridan, was born December 4, 1860 in County Roscommon, Ireland.  She was the youngest daughter of James Sheridan and Elizabeth Ryan. When Jeanne was two years old, her father was involved in an altercation with the British authorities. He fled Ireland for the United States but his whereabouts after boarding ship in Liverpool, England cannot be traced.

At the end of the American Civil War in 1865, the rest of the family left Ireland to join relatives who had settled in Locksport, New York. The younger children were placed in an orphanage until the mother and older sisters could earn enough money to provide a living. When the mother's health failed, the family moved to Erie, Pennsylvania, to be near one of the older daughters who had married. 

Jeanne was 15 when her mother died in 1875. Two years later, in 1877, she entered the novitiate of the Sisters of St. Joseph of Erie. While a member of the Erie congregation, Mother Bernard taught school, cared for orphans at the Erie motherhouse, and studied anesthesia at St. Vincent Hospital. In 1885, she volunteered to go to Kansas and in 1886 she joined the Concordia community.

Mother Bernard was a woman of faith: faith in God, faith in the cause to which she committed herself, faith in her little congregation and faith in herself.  In many respects, she was always a pilgrim, always in search of an illusive place she could call home. As a small child, she had been an immigrant, placed by her mother in an orphanage, united with her family, and then orphaned at 15. Later, she abandoned the security of a well-established congregation for the struggles of a new one on the American frontier. Finally, in obedience, she began a new congregation in a frontier cow town. At age 28, she founded a new congregation whose early years were plagued by one financial crisis after another and a hand-to-mouth existence. In response to diocesan authorities, she had three homes in twelve years--Abilene, Parsons and St. Paul, Kansas--before coming to Wichita in 1900.

JOURNEY ACROSS KANSAS

On August 30, 1888, five young women joined the Abilene congregation.  Within a few months, there were more. The sisters taught at St. Andrew School in Abilene and began the construction of Mount St. Joseph Academy, which also served as the motherhouse until 1896. The years in Abilene were a struggle. Mother Bernard was forced to go east to borrow money and encourage vocations to the congregation on the Kansas frontier.

In 1896, Bishop Fink asked Mother Bernard to move the motherhouse of the congregation to Parsons, Kansas, since there was to be a redrawing of the diocesan boundaries. It was supposed that Parsons would be assigned to the Leavenworth diocese while Abilene might not. For a second time in their short history as a congregation, the sisters moved and occupied their second motherhouse at 1830 Dirr Avenue in Parsons. The diocesan boundaries drawn by Rome placed Parsons and the sisters in the Wichita Diocese under the jurisdiction of Right Rev. John J. Hennessy. The sisters remained in Parsons three years. At the request of Right Rev. Hennessy, they moved to St. Paul, Kansas in 1899.

The years in Parsons and St. Paul were years of economic hardship and deprivation. One of the early pioneers later recalled that they were poor, cold and hungry, and there was nothing to do about it. At one point, the sisters' diet consisted of water gravy from fat pork and wild mulberries. Mother Bernard even contacted another congregation in the East to accept the sisters since there was no way to provide for them. When she laid this plan before the congregation, the sisters unanimously chose to remain in Kansas.

A PERMANENT HOME IN WICHITA

In December 1899, Bishop Hennessy negotiated the purchase of land and a building in east Wichita that was the former site of Wichita University of the Dutch Reform Church. He also authorized needed repairs. Mother Bernard accepted the deed to the property along with its debt, and the congregation occupied the building on March 25, 1900. This was the fourth motherhouse of the congregation and was to become its permanent home. Bishop Hennessy brought the sisters to Wichita to staff the parochial schools of the diocese. This necessitated their withdrawal from other ministry commitments outside the Wichita diocese, some as far away as Iowa and Missouri.

SERVING THE "DEAR NEIGHBOR"

Education and health care were the major ministries of the early congregation. With the construction of Mount Carmel Hospital in Pittsburg in 1903, the congregation began a ministry that eventually would reach not only across the state of Kansas but also into Colorado, Oklahoma and California.

The plight of immigrant miners in southeast Kansas prompted the building of Mount Carmel Hospital. To ensure that they would have access to the care they needed, the sisters offered guaranteed health care for miners and their families for only 25 cents a month.

With their expanding ministries, the congregation needed both vocations and professional competence. To respond to the growing demand for the sisters' services, Mother Bernard made three trips to her native Ireland to encourage vocations. These trips brought a desperately needed supply of teachers, nurses and personnel for their social ministries. Professional competency placed a strain on the congregation's meager financial resources, but sisters were educated at the best universities, colleges and medical facilities in the country.

The sisters did not confine their ministries to education and health care. Until 1920, orphans were cared for at the motherhouse. In the 1940's, the sisters staffed the diocesan orphanage at El Dorado. Home visits, domestic work, parish census, catechetical work and catechetical correspondence were all part of a ministry and charism which the founder had mandated to serve the neighbor.  

Today, in response to the needs of a changing church and society, that work includes ministries with persons with disabilities, a day care center, transitional housing, a clinic for the indigent, care of the elderly in  senior communities, services for battered women and children, Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults, parish scripture classes and other parish ministry services, literacy classes, pastoral care, counseling and spiritual direction, crisis pregnancy counseling, ministry to the deaf, retreat work, and a prayer apostolate.

The scope of congregational ministry has not been limited to the United States. In 1950, the congregation responded to the need for medical services in Kyoto, Japan. Three sisters began a mission which today sponsors a kindergarten, day nursery, medical services for senior citizens, a crippled children's hospital, a special education school and retreat opportunities. 

RESPONSE TO VATICAN II

A constant theme in the life of the Wichita congregation has been that of change.  Together with other congregations of women religious, the sisters have experienced all the joys and sorrows of a changed church and a radically different religious life issuing from Vatican II. Perfectae Caritatis, the Vatican document relating to religious life, challenged religious congregations to return to the spirit of their original charism, adapt to the modern world, and make the Gospel the principle of daily living. Congregations sharing the same charism were asked to join together. For Sisters of St. Joseph in the United States, the formation of the Federation of the Sisters of St. Joseph brought renewed life and understanding of their charism as research teams went to France to study its history recorded in the primitive documents of the congregation. The Wichita congregation has always been a very active participative and supportive of the Federation and profited greatly from Federation interchange.

CHALLENGES AND OPPORTUNITIES IN THE 21ST CENTURY

There have always been ministry demands upon the congregation. There have never been sufficient resources, both personnel and financial, to meet the needs of the church and the people. The lean times of the Great Depression were shared with the rural parishes of Kansas as the sisters taught in some schools for no salary other than the food provided by parish families. The strain felt during the post-World War II years as classroom enrollments skyrocketed was replaced in the 1960's with decreased vocations and a diminishing number of sisters. Like other congregations, the Sisters of St. Joseph of Wichita are challenged by an increasing median age and fewer vocations.

To meet the changing needs of church and society, the Sisters of St. Joseph have redirected their thinking and approach to ministry. In keeping with Vatican II and the congregation's charism, the congregation has responded to service with the laity.  Programs of lay spiritual training, particularly for service in the health care ministry, have been a congregational priority and have characterized our other ministries. Collaboration with other congregations has resulted in shared ministry which could not be effected alone. Ministry is service for and with the people of God.
 
If change has been a constant in the lives of the Sisters of St. Joseph of Wichita, there have been certain unchanging elements which have been the touchstones of the sisters in Le Puy, in Lyon, in the log cabin at Carondelet and the new foundation in Abilene, and have sustained them through moves to Parsons, St. Paul and eventually to Wichita. That unchanging constant is the charism which is the heart and soul of the congregation and its individual members.  It is in fidelity to that charism that the Sisters of St. Joseph have served for and with the people of God in Kansas and their other places of ministry. 

The Sisters of St. Joseph of Wichita enter the new millennium with faith and confidence in God's loving care, which has been so manifest in their history. That faith and confidence has inspired their Chapter Directional Statement, which expresses their commitment for the 21st century:

• Commit ourselves to personal responsibility and involvement in vocations and formation ministries
• Give faithful witness to Gospel values through a simple lifestyle
• Make a commitment to enhance the quality of life of women
• Deepen our spirituality and prayer life leading to ongoing conversion to Gospel values and deeper living of our charism
• Commit our time, talent and resources in working for a just world order
• Continue to discern Reconfiguration to further the mission of Jesus

With God's help, we will fulfill our commitments in the 21st century.