Our charism is rooted in our spirituality. We invite members of the family of Joseph to share their personal reflections about spirituality and mission to inspire, uplift and educate.
My experience at the shelter in Mexicali, Mexico has changed my life. I am now looking at everything and everyone with different eyes. The experience was not anything I had expected! I thought there would be a building surrounded with a yard where the children could play and we would paint in small groups. Instead, we arrived at a crowded shelter with 215 immigrants—110 adults and 105 children.
In the middle of October, we celebrate Founders’ Day, memorializing the eight courageous pioneers who created our community in Le Puy, France. Father Médaille went where Jesuits were not allowed to go, gathering a group of women and helping them become a formal religious congregation.
I said to the 8-year-old “how lucky she was to have him help her” His response was “Well someone has to do it so I guess it’s me.” What a parent won’t do to save their children.
In both local communities, I experienced meaningful daily common prayer, delicious typical Peruvian dishes prepared right at home and an occasional outing. So, pass the days and the weeks, very ordinary, but never dull.
“Where one of us are, all of us are.” With this in mind, “we” were in San Antonio, Texas the last two weeks of November helping 80 Afghanistan refugee families settle into their new lives. Here are four snapshots of our time there.
We are familiar with portraits. Yet, I believe that we also find them in each other. We are portraits to each other. Are we not?
Kawsar then went on to charm all of the volunteers at the food pantry saying to each one the only words she knows in English: “I love you.”
Lilianis, her husband, and her children left Venezuela out of necessity, not because they wanted to. Economic and political life was in crisis in their country and they could not support themselves as a family.
Sisters Teresa Avalos, Carol Brong and Sally Koch reflect on their recent trip to the border with Border Compassion.
We asked some of our newest members to share what life is like as a woman discerning religious life during a time in our world of change, letting go and finding a new way.
The Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet are a congregation of Catholic sisters. We, and those who share our charism and mission, are motivated in all things by our profound love of God and our dear neighbors. We seek to build communities and bridge divides between people. Since our first sisters gathered in 1650, our members have been called to “do all things of which women are capable.” The first sisters of our congregation arrived in St. Louis, Missouri in 1836, and we now have additional locations in St. Paul, Albany, Los Angeles, Hawaii, Japan and Peru. Today, we commit to respond boldly to injustice and dare to be prophetic.