Adapting to the Signs of the Times

While never wavering from our mission and charism, the Sisters of St. Joseph have gone through many organizational changes since our founding in 1650. Today, guided by the inspirations of the Holy Spirit, our congregation continues to discern the best way to govern ourselves. As we imagine together with God how we are going to live into the 21st century, we feel a great deal of excitement.

Ever since our founding, Sisters of St. Joseph have ventured into the new. We were probably the first sisters to be able to serve the neighbor outside the convent walls. As the times changed, Mother St. John Fontbonne brought many small communities together into a congregation based in Lyon, France. This organization allowed greater flexibility for responding to the needs around them. In 1836, eight sisters from Lyon ventured to St. Louis, and their mission spread to include the Carondelet provinces and vice provinces as well as most of the congregations of St. Joseph in the United States—each organized to serve the neighbor as best we could.

Our sisters continue to adapt and respond to the needs of the world today.

The congregation also discerns and responds to the ways our own needs are changing. At our most recent congregational chapter in 2019, our sisters called themselves to simplify. How can we best use the time and talent of our sisters and staff? How can we innovate and do things in new and better ways?

The sisters went through formal discernment processes in each province and vice province to examine their governance structures. After that prayer and dialogue together in community, the Albany Province, Los Angeles Province and Peru Vice Province each discerned that they could better serve the dear neighbor if they relate directly to the Congregational Leadership Team, meaning they will eventually no longer have their own separate vice/provincial leadership teams. The St. Louis Province and St. Paul Province each decided to maintain their province structures.

“Since our beginnings in France, discernment has been fundamental to our lives as Sisters of St. Joseph,” said Patty Johnson, CSJ of the Congregational Leadership Team. “So as we adapt for mission in the times in which we live, we do so by carefully pondering together what God is asking of us now.”

For Albany, Los Angeles and Peru, this is not a merger, but an evolving simplification. These changes are simplifying our administrative structures and are bringing sisters from Asia, the United States and Latin America into a new depth of relationship with one another. While that happens, no sisters will need to move from the area from which they entered the congregation. The sisters you know and love will remain in your communities, and you will continue to hear about them and have ways to support them.

The sisters in Albany, Los Angeles and Peru have been getting to know each other more deeply as they look forward to becoming one international community. They have participated in a series of virtual encounters and prayer services together. They have shared virtual photo albums and reflections. And many have been working to learn English, Spanish and/or Japanese to be better able to communicate with each other.

All of this represents some changes to our internal organization, but we have always been and will always be one congregation of the Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet.

Ever since 1650, we have been discerning how to adapt to the signs of the times. The process will continue for as long as we do so that we can best express and share our charism in this 21st century.

Thank you for being part of our life and legacy. Please keep us in prayer and be assured that we pray for you.

This story appeared in the 2024 issue of Carondelet magazine. Join our mailing list.