Celebrating 375: Cooking Up a Congregation

The Heart of the Home

There’s something special about a kitchen. It’s a natural gathering space to talk while you’re cooking or snacking. It’s the origin of scrumptious smells that waft up to your room and entice your tastebuds as you wait for dinner. It’s the place to share your endearing secrets or funny stories over a cup of tea or coffee. It’s often what you picture when you think about “home”.

A Kitchen in Le Puy

Laying the Foundation

When the “Little Design” of Father Jean Pierre Medaille, SJ began to take shape in the mid-1600s, there was only one form of religious life available to women: the cloister. Groups of women had tried to create apostolic congregations, focused on ministry and service to the people of God, but they had been shut down or shut behind the doors of a convent.

Building the foundations of what would become the Sisters of St. Joseph, Father Medaille carefully described a new community of women in service of the dear neighbor. In the Règlements, he wrote: “This association is established to provide for many young women or widows not called to the cloister or who have not the means to enter it, and who, nevertheless, wish to live chastely in the world.”

In 1650, six women of the “Little Design” joined together in community under the patronage of St. Joseph in Le Puy-en-Velay, France. Offering their lives in service to God and the dear neighbor, this religious community devoted themselves to the needs of ordinary people, living among them.

These women had no monastery and no convent but were called to live together in a “common life.” So where did they gather? A kitchen. Living in a common house, the original six sisters cooked, ate, made lace to support themselves and grew together as a congregation in a small kitchen in Le Puy.

Enduring Revolution

By the time of the French Revolution, there were Sisters of St. Joseph in well over 150 communities, concentrated in the dioceses of Le Puy, Lyon, Clermont and Vienne. As the revolution took hold of France, the sisters were harassed and antagonized.

The National Assembly stripped the Church of its material goods and demanded the suppression of all religious orders. In 1793, the Sisters of St. Joseph in Le Puy were expelled from their premises, and their goods were confiscated. This included the Motherhouse where the original kitchen was located. When the building was confiscated, a regiment of soldiers moved in. The soldiers left a lot of damage. After the Revolution, it took 10 years to rebuild the site.

Returning to the Hearth

Thanks to the efforts of Mother St. John Fontbonne and other post-revolution sisters, the Sisters of St. Joseph were able to return to Le Puy and to the kitchen of our founding. In the second half of the 20th century, the sisters made the kitchen a heritage site. Today, the kitchen remains a meaningful symbol of community and sharing for sisters around the world.

Visiting the Kitchen in Le Puy

A profound pilgrimage for those drawn to our charism, we asked Sister Jeanne Marie Gocha, CSJ to reflect on the experience of visiting the kitchen in Le Puy. Here is her reflection:

For a Sister of St. Joseph, the kitchen of Le Puy is a very sacred place. It’s what we think of when we refer to our founding in 1650. The Congregation of the Great Love of God began there as our first six sisters gathered to discuss the presentations of Father Jean Pierre Medaille, SJ. The sisters shared the state of their hearts and the order of the house as they lived into the “Little Design” that Medaille had created with them.

It is from this kitchen that women were sent forth to live and minister with the Dear Neighbor, first in France and then, little by little, all over the globe. The stone walls and wooden floor embraced our very first sisters in the 17th century, and they continue to welcome our sisters and charism partners today.

My first visit to the kitchen in Le Puy was in 2014 with sisters from our province on pilgrimage to Le Puy, Lyon and Paris. Amid the hubbub of daily work at the nursing home, we were standing in front of an ordinary, green door. The door opened, and we were transported into the Kitchen of 1650.

There we were, in the place where our first six sisters—and many more after them—gathered to eat together, relate the adventures of their day, weave their lace, share the state of their hearts. And there I was, in the very same place 364 years later! A sacred presence embraced us as we imagined a fire burning in the hearth and sisters gathered for prayer, meals and lacemaking.

I was lucky enough to visit again in 2016. I sat in this sacred space and prayed for each of my sisters and associates by name, using our directory. What a gift! The memories of being there continue to excite and inspire me today.

We cannot talk about the kitchen in Le Puy without deep gratitude to the Sisters of St. Joseph of Le Puy, now the Institute of the Sisters of St. Joseph. They cared for and preserved the kitchen for over 375 years, almost 4 centuries! Throughout wars and epidemics, renovations and revolutions, the kitchen remains, well-preserved, as a testament to our origins and an inspiration for our future because of the centuries of care given to it by our sisters from the Institute. We are forever grateful!