During our Fuel the Body, Fuel the Soul meeting on March 13th, Sister Marilyn Lott, CSJ spoke with participants about living in the present. For fueling the body, Sister Suzanne Giro, CSJ provided her recipe for homemade shrimp fettuccini. Find the shrimp fettuccini recipe and a recording of Sister Marilyn’s presentation below!
Fuel the Body, Fuel the Soul is a monthly series held on Zoom. Each session features an introduction to a healthy recipe presented by a sister, a presentation focusing on a spiritual topic and discussion and prayer with a community of women from around the country. There is no cost to attend. Join us for our next meeting!
Prepare fettuccini pasta according to its instructions. While preparing the pasta, sauté onions and garlic in olive oil. Add shrimp and seasonings to taste to the sauté pan. Let simmer for about 10 minutes. Drain the pasta and return it to its pot. Add the sautéed mixture to the pasta pot and stir, making sure to evenly coat the pasta. Plate the fettuccini and serve with Parmesan cheese sprinkled on top. Enjoy!
The butterfly counts not months but moments and has time enough.
Rabindranath Tagore
This beautiful quote—which I used to keep it up in my classroom when I was teaching the little ones—I have carried it with me from mission to mission for a long time. It continues to move me, especially when I think of being present to the moment.
I worked at St. Louis University Hospital, which is kind of our inner-city hospital here in St. Louis, as a chaplain after I was with the novitiate. What I started realizing, especially in the emergency room, was we don’t know how much time we have. Do we have ten more minutes or ten more years?
After accidents or violence brought people to the hospital, I would go down to take care of families, bringing them in and being with them. People would come to the hospital after a horrendous accident and not make it. We would bring the family in, and they would say to me, “We argued last night. I didn’t get a chance to say I’m sorry.”
Even in my work at Nazareth Living Center, an assisted living community, you never know how long you have with people. I was talking to a resident the other day, and he said, “I’m here because this will be the last place I live. I have no regrets. I love the life I’ve had, and I want to continue as long as I can now.” And I thought, Oh my gosh, he’s got it together. He has since passed, but he amazed me. He was so put together, knowing he was dying and he loved it. He loved life and wasn’t fearful.
He and the words of that quote remind me to slow down, to appreciate the small joys and to savor the magic of the present.
The butterfly’s perception of time isn’t bound by our calendars, our deadlines. It’s rooted in a deep appreciation of the now. They don’t live long, but they make the most of what they have. I’ve learned to see the world, most days, as a wonder. Interconnectedness with everything that we see is so important.
It’s so easy to live in the past. How often have you lived in the past, thinking to yourself, “Only if!” The secret of health, for both mind, body and spirit is to not mourn the past, worry about the future or anticipate troubles.
There are times we have to learn from the past. I believe the only true mistake is not learning from your mistakes. If we continue to learn from what we do, then that is a gift. However, while we must learn from the past, we cannot live in it. We get that self discovery of who we are and keep moving on.
Choosing to live the past or the future robs us of the enjoyment of today. Living the present moment means actively focusing on your current experiences and sensations rather than dwelling on the past or worrying about the future. It’s about being fully aware and engaged in what’s happening right now.
Now, that’s not easy to do. I struggle with it too! It takes work and lots of practice. It’s so easy to get caught up in work and what needs to get done. When I go to work, I never know who I’m going to meet or what I’m going to face. I have to try to be present to the people I interact with and not worry about what I can or cannot get done.
Sometimes I’ll look at how many people who’ve just entered our long-term care or our rehab center and haven’t been seen yet, and I think, Oh my gosh! There’s no way! But when I go in, I have some of the best visits with people. Even if I don’t see everyone that day or get everything done, it is very powerful to be with people while living in the present moment.
Here are some tips for living in the present:
Take a deep breath to settle yourself in the moment.
Intentionally observe your thoughts and feelings without judgment.
Try not to dwell on past mistakes. The only mistake is not learning from them.
Set aside distractions. Take a break from things like social media and your phone. What are those distractions keeping you from?
Actively notice details around you, paying close attention to your surroundings and bodily sensations.
Try to focus on one thing at a time. While it might feel more productive to multitask, constantly juggling tasks makes it hard to be in the present.
Pay close attention to what you’re doing. If you’re eating something, think about it. How does it taste? What does it smell like? What is the texture?
Let go of how you think things should be, and be open to the way that they are. You cannot control everything that happens around you.
Take time to be grateful for what you have in the moment. Appreciate where you are, what you’re doing and who is with you.
As it’s Lent, I want to tie living in the present to prayer. Prayer encourages a pause to intentionally focus on the presence of God in the present moment, allowing a deeper level of communion and a more authentic expression of your spiritual life.
Are you aware of God working in you as you meet somebody? Before visiting with or counseling someone, I say a prayer that I have open ears, an open heart and an open mind to hear what they’re saying. Just a little quiet prayer to pull me into that moment, saying, “God be with me in this.” My intention is to open up to God, trusting God to lead me one moment at a time. Colossians 3:17 reminds us that whatever we do, whether in word or deed, we must do in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God through him.
Creator God, I trust you to lead me one moment at a time today.
Lord, your presence brings significance to the small moments of my day.
Show me, Lord, what you’re already doing today, that I might align my ways with yours.
Open my eyes to attitudes that grieve you today.
Let me hear your voice, see you in others and, above all, live today with you in the present moment.
Amen.
“Striving to be beacons of hope, we commit to…use our collective voice to accompany others in speaking their truth.”
Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet, 2019 Acts of Chapter
Every six years, delegates from each location in our congregation gather for a congregational chapter. During this meeting, they agree on priorities and directions for the life of the congregation for the following six years. In 2019, one of those priorities was to “use our collective voice to accompany others in speaking their truth.”
Here are some of the ways our congregation has used our collective voice in the past few years.
Developing Diverse Voices
Our sisters wanted to find a way to support the dear neighbor in telling their own stories and advocating for themselves personally, in their communities and in politics. We believe that we should do all we can to help elevate the voices of our dear neighbors, especially those who come from under-resourced communities. To that end, we developed the Developing Diverse Voices curriculum.
Developing Diverse Voices is a free set of workshops for not-for-profit organizations to use to train their clients to tell their own stories. The program has two main goals:
To help people hone their stories, so they can tell them with conviction and
To connect clients to service organizations in new ways, including as spokespeople and colleagues.
During the Catholic Church’s Synod on Synodality, we invited everyone to pray with us a womanly novena, each month for nine months, for a more inclusive church.
Ahead of the synod, Discerning Deacons asked us to affirm a statement published by the International Union of Superiors General (UISG) and the men’s Union of Superiors General for increasing women’s ability to contribute to the life and mission of the Church. The decision to support this statement and to promote the vocation of women to the ordained ministry was unanimous.
Language Learning
As a part of the Immigrant Home English Learning Program (IHELP), many of our sisters help provide at-home English tutoring for immigrant adults and children. Volunteering with the Immigrant Home English Learning Program, our sisters help equip immigrant families to function with increased confidence and independence, handle emergency and medical situations, gain financial literacy, and other practical living skills.
Our sisters have also started a language learning program teaching English to Sisters of St. Basil the Great via Zoom.
An Ongoing Effort
As a congregation, we have sought to use our collective voice to accompany others in speaking their truth. The above list of actions does not catalogue every effort we have made, and there is much deeper and farther to go as we accompany others in speaking their truth. Boldness, creativity, and collaboration will be the hallmarks of our future actions.
“Striving to be beacons of hope, we commit to…walk with women as we claim our voice and work toward an inclusive church and society…”
Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet, 2019 Acts of Chapter
Every six years, delegates from each location in our congregation gather for a congregational chapter. During this meeting, they agree on priorities and directions for the life of the congregation for the following six years. In 2019, one of those priorities was to “walk with women as we claim our voice and work toward an inclusive church and society.”
Here are three of the ways our congregation has support women in the past few years.
Womanly Novena
The worldwide Catholic Church held a Synod on Synodality, which sought input from Catholics around the globe “to provide an opportunity for the entire People of God to discern together how to move forward on the path towards being a more synodal Church in the long-term.”
As the church prepared for the second stage of the synod, we invited everyone to pray with us a womanly novena, each month for nine months, for a more inclusive church. Each month, we shared:
“First Witnesses of the Resurrection” by Sister Marion Honors, CSJ
Discerning Deacons
Discerning Deacons, a group founded in 2020 to support women discerning their vocation to the diaconate in the Catholic Church, asked us to affirm a statement published by the International Union of Superiors General (UISG) and the men’s Union of Superiors General. The following statement comes from their joint contribution to the Synod on Synodality in which they made 13 proposals for increasing women’s ability to contribute to the life and mission of the Church.
The international superiors requested that the Church:
“Allow women to discern and respond to the call of serving as permanent deacons. This proposal was supported by many. A more limited number of respondents proposed also ordination to priesthood.”
Our congregation supported this request, pledging that we would make our support known to our congregation, to Discerning Deacons and to any synod delegates we can contact. We agreed that:
We affirm that now is the appropriate time to allow women to discern this call, to have access to the necessary formation and to be ordained as deacons;
We commit ourselves as a congregation to partner with the global and local Church in implementing the synod processes that would allow women to discern and respond to this call;
We will pray that this discernment continues in a synodal manner, trusting in the movement and guidance of the Holy Spirit.
The decision to support this statement and to promote the vocation of women to the ordained ministry was unanimous. We encourage every sister and charism partner to act on this commitment in whatever ways possible and welcome them to invite any others who are willing to promote this dimension of increasing women’s contribution to the life of the Catholic Church.
Supporting the passage of the Equal Rights Amendment in the U.S. Constitution
As one response to our 2019 Chapter directive to work toward an inclusive society, we are supporting the full implementation of the Equal Rights Amendment for the United States.
A bit of history: the needed 38 states have ratified the Equal Rights Amendment, and the required two-year waiting period following the last state’s ratification was fulfilled on January 27, 2022. The only thing preventing the full implementation of that ratification is a procedural issue. On the original item, Congress indicated a date by which the amendment should be ratified, but the Constitution demands no specific time period for ratification. That impediment can be overcome if the National Archivist publishes the legally approved amendment.
We have been following the lead of the Equal Rights Amendment Coalition in advocating for ratification of the amendment. President Biden declared it the law of the land shortly before leaving office. Though this will surely be challenged in court, we are hopeful it will be added to the constitution.
Sisters from our St. Paul Province in the Minnesota House of Representatives advocated for a resolution to Congress urging the ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA).
An Ongoing Effort
As individuals and as a congregation, we have sought to lift up the voices of women. The above list of actions does not catalogue every effort we have made, and there is much deeper and farther to go in our walk with women as we claim our voice and work toward an inclusive church and society. Boldness, creativity, and collaboration will be the hallmarks of our future actions.
“Striving to be beacons of hope, we commit to…articulate and authentically live our vows in ways that witness and speak to today’s realities…”
Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet, 2019 Acts of Chapter
Every six years, delegates from each location in our congregation gather for a congregational chapter. During this meeting, they agree on priorities and directions for the life of the congregation for the following six years. In 2019, one of those priorities was to “articulate and authentically live our vows in ways that witness and speak to today’s realities.”
“Solemnity of the Sacred Heart” by Sister Marion Honors, CSJ
Sharing of the Heart
As part of designing our community, Father Médaille called the first sisters to meet weekly to “confer for a half hour on the state of their congregation and the current works of zeal.” This practice, today understood as the Sharing of the State of the Heart and the Order of the House, gave our sisters the opportunity to discern together about how the Spirit of God was calling them to live their vocation individually and collectively.
Strength for our mission comes from fidelity to community, prayer, our practice of sharing our heart and celebrating the rituals of church and community. In 2020, we created new opportunities for sisters to participate in regular Sharing of the Heart groups with sisters from across the congregation.
Kakehashi
Kakehashi is the Japanese word for “bridge.” The Kakehashi group is a generation of sisters born after the year 1952. Kakehashi works to build a bridge between the past and the future of religious life.
Some of the Kakehashi sisters posed for a group photo outside the log church in Cahokia, Illinois.
Defined by diversity, Kakehashi is made up of sisters from the continental United States, Perú, Japan and Hawai`i. Their members have a wide variety of ages, ministries and gifts. Through Kakehashi, they have developed a deep-felt sense of oneness and unity.
As Kakehashi, our sisters have committed to prepare for leadership roles in religious life. They express great hope for the future of religious life and look forward to broader conversations with the entire international Family of St. Joseph.
Vow Workbook
Commitment in a religious congregation is first of all a response to God’s call. The initiative comes from God. This implies that God has called each of us to come together in our particular congregation at this unique time. There is something unique that we can achieve together that none of us could accomplish alone—for one another and together for the world.
As Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet, we have continued to explore where and how we are able to exercise our charism. We know that the signs of our times call us to flexibility and a spirit of adventure. We may be both excited and watchful because we really do not know where it is all going. But underneath all the unknowns, expectations and concerns, we trust that the One who began this good work among us will continue drawing us more deeply into the mystery of oneness that Christ prayed for.
In 2024, congregational leadership created a simple booklet to spur our sisters to greater conversation and exploration about our life together. The booklet offered reflections on an evolutionary theological perspective, our three vows, our global context, the vocation to religious life and our charism of unifying love in an evolutionary perspective.
Expanding and Deepening Our Partnerships
Association
Associates are women and men from various faith traditions, married and single, who extend the mission and share the spirit of the Sisters of St. Joseph without becoming vowed members. We call them consociates in the St. Paul Province, `ohana in Hawai`i, amigas in Perú and familia de San José in Chile. At present, nearly 800 women and men have made formal commitments as associates.
Association has a long, rich history with the Sisters of St. Joseph, dating back to the founding of the congregation in France in 1650. Today, associates continue to bring our spirit to their jobs, faith communities and families as they share their gifts in works of justice and peace, care for the poor and for Earth.
Agrégées
Another relatively new way of living the charism is a group of people called agrégées. This term is found in the early history of the Sisters of St. Joseph. Although the original documentation does not offer a clear definition, from the beginning, the Spirit’s call impelled women from varied backgrounds and with diverse life commitments to come together for the life of the world.
Those who are exploring the agrégée call gathered in St. Paul in 2019.
Agrégées live our charism and mission of unifying love of God and the dear neighbor without distinction. They are called to make a deep commitment to our congregation and to each other in community.
The members of this emerging agrégée community are walking a path of discovery: studying the history, conversing with agrégées in other congregations’ communities, listening closely to the Spirit and having regular conversations with their sister-companions as they discern their future. This group calls us to expand our community and embrace the charism in new ways that honor our tradition.
St. Joseph Workers
The St. Joseph Worker Program is a year-long service opportunity for women ages 21-30 in preparation for a lifelong commitment to social change and personal transformation. Individual growth and development are built on the values of leadership, spirituality, social justice and intentional community grounded in living simply and sustainably.
Every volunteer is matched with a placement, where they spend a 36-hour workweek. One night a week is designated for Sharing of the Heart, a spiritual practice for the Sisters of St. Joseph during which each household spends an evening with spirituality, listening and learning from one another. In addition, the program includes weekly community nights, multiple retreats, social justice opportunities and other development activities to make the year a truly transformative experience.
An Ongoing Effort
As individuals and as a congregation, we have sought to articulate and authentically live our vows in ways that witness and speak to today’s realities. The above list of actions does not catalogue every effort we have made, and we are always called to go deeper and journey farther. Boldness, creativity, and collaboration will be the hallmarks of our future actions.
“Striving to be beacons of hope, we commit to…deepen awareness of our complicity and work toward dismantling interlocking systems of oppression…”
Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet, 2019 Acts of Chapter
Every six years, delegates from each location in our congregation gather for a congregational chapter. During this meeting, they agree on priorities and directions for the life of the congregation for the following six years. In 2019, one of those priorities was to “deepen awareness of our complicity and work toward dismantling interlocking systems of oppression.”
Here are some of the ways our congregation has worked for justice in the past few years.
Immigration Justice
Border Compassion
Border Compassion is an all-volunteer organization that was founded by Sister Suzanne Jabro, CSJ. The mission of Boder Compassion is to invite faith-communities to cross-over at the border to offer a compassionate humanitarian response to families living at the Posada del Migrante Shelter, which houses up to 300 people.
Centers like the Posada del Migrante Shelter provide migrants with food, clothing, shelter and other basic needs while they prepare to travel to their U.S. family members or sponsors. Sisters, associates and partners in ministry across the congregation have volunteered at these centers as well as provided funding and donations.
Not only have our sisters advocated for the rights of migrants, asylum seekers and refugees, but some of our sisters have had the opportunity to welcome refugees into their homes.
Our sisters in Perú welcomed Hanna and her daughter into their community while they waited to begin the next step of their journey. When COVID restrictions were lifted, Hanna and her daughter traveled to Canada where Sisters of St. Joseph and the Diocese of Peterborough sponsored them as refugees.
In St. Louis, Sisters Sally Harper, CSJ and Sean Peters, CSJ also opened their home to a woman seeking asylum. Many of our sisters are also involved in the Immigrant Home English Learning Program (IHELP) where they help provide at-home English tutoring for immigrant adults and children.
Our congregation has been a member of the Alliance to End Human Trafficking (formerly U.S. Catholic Sisters Against Human Trafficking) for over a decade. Sister Judy Molosky, CSJ from our Los Angeles Province currently serves as a board member.
Alliance to End Human Trafficking works to end human trafficking through providing educational resources, giving presentations, raising awareness, and engaging in advocacy at the state and federal level. The alliance supports survivors of human trafficking in healing and thriving through direct services such as providing shelter, counseling, spiritual support, job placement, and educational scholarships.
Racial Justice
Our work confronting racism began within the congregation. Calling ourselves to go deeper, journey farther, and respond boldly, our congregation and sponsored ministries took a hard look at our history and discussed what we found. While our congregation has no known connections to slavery, we are still grappling with institutional racism in our history and our involvement in U.S. policies of forced enculturation of Indigenous peoples.
All four of our provinces have been focusing on racism by hosting workshops, presentations, film and book studies, and by forming racial justice committees. At the center of all of these actions is deep listening and discussion. We have also advocated to safeguard voting rights, protect native land and reform the justice system.
Healthcare and Housing
Access to Healthcare
As a congregation, we have continued to sponsor and support ministries our sisters founded, such as St. Mary’s Health Clinics and Circle the City, which provide healthcare for individuals without access.
St. Mary’s Health Clinics (SMHC), in St. Paul, Minnesota, works to provide free medical care, outreach and education to low-income, uninsured families and individuals who are not eligible for government programs. The clinics conduct health screenings, education and promotion and outreach in collaboration with community organizations.
Founded by Sister Adele O’Sullivan, CSJ, MD, Circle the City provides healthcare and hope to all individuals facing homelessness in Maricopa County. Their programs include outpatient care, respite care, mobile medical care, street medicine and hospital health navigation.
Project Home’s official move-in day for families at the St. Paul Provincial House. Many Sisters, Consociates, staff and others volunteered to assist Interfaith Action with the day’s events.
Providing Shelter
Interfaith Action of Greater Saint Paul has been operating its Project Home program in our St. Paul Provincial House since March 2021. Project Home provides shelter for families experiencing homelessness. There was a clear need to address housing in the local community, and the St. Paul Province quickly and enthusiastically moved to address this need by offering and adapting the Provincial House for Interfaith Action’s Project Home.
For more than 20 years, Interfaith Action’s Project Home program had no building of its own. Each month, the nonprofit would set up 40 emergency beds between two sites, rotating among 24 churches, synagogues and a school.
In the first nine months of Project Home’s time at our St. Paul Provincial House, 73 families (including 153 children and 88 adults) lived there. Families stay for an average of 83 days before moving to stable housing. Six months after moving out of Project Home, 91% remain in the housing they settled in.
Women’s Voices
In our walk with women as we claim our voice and work toward an inclusive church and society, we created a Womanly Novena during the Catholic Church’s Synod on Synodality, affirmed a statement published by the International Union of Superiors General (UISG) and the men’s Union of Superiors General for increasing women’s ability to contribute to the life and mission of the Church, and advocated for the ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
Sisters from our St. Paul Province in the Minnesota House of Representatives advocated for a resolution to Congress urging the ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA).
Justice Reform
Restorative Justice
Founded by Sister Theresa Harpin, CSJ, Restorative Partners provides services and programs for those in-custody and for those released from the San Luis County Juvenile Hall, Jail, Honor Farm and State Prisons. The goal in all of their transformative work is to reduce violence and lower recidivism by providing a continuum of care from incarceration through reincorporation to our community.
In 2023, Restorative Partners added a new social enterprise called The Bridge Cafe. The mission of the new café is to provide delicious farm-to-table meals and a Culinary Training Certificate and employment placement program for justice-involved trainees.
Ending the Death Penalty
Foundational to the principles of Catholic Social Teaching is our belief in the sanctity of human life and the inherent dignity of the human person. Looking to the way of mercy and forgiveness exemplified by Jesus’ own life, the Catechism of the Catholic Church and our charism of unifying love, we strongly oppose the use of the death penalty.
Understanding that the death penalty does not provide easy or simple solutions, we continue, as we have for decades, our opposition to the death penalty. Our community, with our partners in mission, has long ministered to and advocated for our siblings on death row including praying, visiting and writing personal letters.
As a congregation, we have joined, supported and collaborated with local and national organizations that oppose the death penalty, such as:
We are also committed to speaking out through public witness, such as at prayer vigils for both victims, victims’ families and people facing execution as well as appealing to governors for stays of execution.
An Ongoing Effort
As individuals and as a congregation, we have sought to deepen awareness of our complicity and work toward dismantling interlocking systems of oppression. The above list of actions does not catalogue every effort we have made, and there is much deeper and farther to go in dismantling discrimination of race, class, gender and religion. Boldness, creativity, and collaboration will be the hallmarks of our future actions.
“Striving to be beacons of hope, we commit to…respond to the crisis of Earth and global warming…”
Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet, 2019 Acts of Chapter
Every six years, delegates from each location in our congregation gather for a congregational chapter. During this meeting, they agree on priorities and directions for the life of the congregation for the following six years. In 2019, one of those priorities was to “respond to the crisis of Earth and global warming.”
Laudato Si’ Action Plan
Our journey of ecological conversion formally began in 1997. We have a long-standing commitment of deep communion and right relationships with the Earth. Over the last three decades, we have made many changes that moved us closer to ecological sustainability. These past choices give us the courage to boldly and creatively commit to new actions that will lead us to greater ecological conversion and to living more environmentally sustainable lives.
In 2021, our congregation publicly committed to join with Pope Francis and the universal Catholic Church on a seven-year journey to ecological conversion through the Laudato Si’ Action Platform. As a part of this commitment, we developed our Laudato Si’ Action Plan.
In our Laudato Si’ Action Plan, we committed to both personal and organization-wide change. Together, we have learned about the impact our previous practices had on our planet, and we have made meaningful changes both as individuals and as a congregation. We have held ourselves accountable for the way we live our lives, setting specific, measurable targets for education, major buildings, waterways, land and air, spirituality, advocacy and social action.
Eco-Challenges
As part of our commitment to Earth via our Laudato Si’ Action Plan, we invited our sisters and everyone who shares in our charism to take a monthly Eco-Challenge with us. These Eco-Challenges showcase a wide variety of simple changes that can be made to our everyday lives that will positively impact the Earth.
Each Eco-Challenge presents a brief overview of the topic and its impact on the Earth. Alternative products or actions are highlighted before the reader is challenged to take action, advocate for change and/or begin their journey of ecological conversion.
Our Eco-Challenges covered a wide range of actionable items including:
Our congregation committed to responding to the crisis of Earth and global warming, but we recognized that we could make the biggest impact by supporting the systemic global change being championed by the United Nations.
Since 2022, our sisters have attended the Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee meetings at the United Nations on behalf of the Congregations of the Sisters of St Joseph Non-Governmental Organization (CSJ UN NGO) to advocate for a legally binding international treaty to address plastic pollution.
Our NGO status gives us the privilege of submitting testimony. At INC-2, we submitted a testimony on our history of consensus decision-making, informing the delegates that our experience has shown us that discernment and listening to all voices will lead to choices made for the common good, even if a 100% consensus is not always possible. At INC-5, we submitted a statement on our hopes and expectations for the negotiating session, highlighting the need to effectively address root causes of plastic pollution.
Left to right: Sisters Teresa Mitani, Patty Johnson, Agripina Morales and Chizuru Yamada in Busan, South Korea.
We continue to strengthen our relationships with each other and our partners, interact with the teams from our three countries, spread awareness and opportunity for advocacy and continue to hope for a positive outcome.
Ecological Conversion
Plastic Free July
Since plastic began to be mass-produced in the 1950s, 8.3 billion metric tons of it have been created. Only 9% has been recycled, while 12% has been incinerated (often causing air pollution) and 79% has made its way to the ocean or to a landfill.
Plastic Free July is a global movement that offers us the opportunity to commit to personal change and advocate for systemic change to free our world from plastics. As a congregation, we spend Plastic Free July as a month of education, engagement, action and prayer.
Each Plastic Free July, we encourage our sisters and charism partners to reduce their plastic use, petition governments for a global plastic treaty and spread awareness. To ease the switch from plastic products, our sisters and partners in mission developed a list of recommended sustainable products.
Season of Creation
Catholics around the world recognize the Season of Creation from September 1, the World Day of Prayer for Creation, through October 4, the Feast of St. Francis of Assisi.
During the Season of Creation, we emphasize the need for ecological conversion. While continuing to make meaningful lifestyle changes as both individuals and as a congregation, we encourage our sisters and charism partners to engage with our Season of Creation prayer journals and guided reflections.
As individuals and as an organization, we’ve challenging ourselves to reduce our carbon output by doing things like reducing our electricity consumption and switching our car fleets to electric. Alongside long-term solutions to reduce our carbon footprint, we developed the Trees for Tacna program to offset the carbon emissions of the congregational office.
We partnered with Fe y Alegría (Faith and Joy) School, where our sisters ministered for over 40 years in Tacna, Perú, to create a tree-planting program. Modeled after a scientific study in nearby Ina, Perú, we chose to plant huarango trees which thrive in the local climate and have a significant impact on reducing desertification. Huarango trees provide shade and even food once they’re fully grown. They require very little water, but like all trees, they pull carbon out of the atmosphere.
Students from Fe y Alegría School.
Sister Agripina Morales had a group of her students lay out a plan for what they could do with the mud-packed area around the school, in addition to the trees, to make it a place where the kids could play. They planted their version of grass, put up a transparent tarp that would provide shade and painted murals about Laudato Si’ on the walls. The Trees for Tacna program planted trees, created green space in the community and fostered environmental education.
Ecological Use of Buildings and Land
Over the last two decades, we have made significant changes to promote ecological sustainability in our use of major buildings and property.
At the Carondelet Motherhouse in St. Louis, the building was updated to be more energy-efficient. We replaced windows and other building items that could lead to a large waste of heat, energy and other resources. Making these swaps led to a 6% savings in electricity alone. We also reduced our food waste by repurposing food and setting up better, more efficient meal plans. On the grounds, native plants replaced many ornamental plants and bushes. These attract pollinators, including bees and monarch butterflies. Several years ago, we participated in the planting of a nearby community garden that also focuses on pollinators.
In our St. Paul Province, we also made our buildings more energy-efficient. Since 2016, all of our electric energy has been provided through renewable energy sources, which we pay a premium for. We also created a community garden space to promote using local and fresh ingredients, supporting pollinators and cultivating connections within our community. The community gardeners work together to tend the space collectively and harvest about 1,000 pounds of produce each harvest season. This produce is then shared among the community gardeners and donated to students at St. Catherine University.
Volunteers at our community garden in St. Paul.
The Provincial House in Albany invested in a local solar farm in 2019. The farm came online in October 2020, and we received substantial solar credits for use of this form of electricity. At the Provincial House, we promoted milkweed growth for monarch butterflies. We only mowed our meadow two times a year to provide a hospitable environment for creatures including butterflies, moths and birds. We used organic pest control methods throughout the buildings and grounds.
Carondelet Center in Los Angeles made the switch to more efficient lighting. We also changed waste management companies to a company that recycles our green waste and accepts more recyclables. In 2019, our Los Angeles Province created an Earth-Friendly Sustainability Plan for Carondelet Center. We moved away from single-wrapped food products, served less beef, provided Terracycle boxes for candy and snack wrappers.
An Ongoing Effort
As individuals and as a congregation, we have sought a deeper communion with creation, recognized the urgency in responding to the crisis of Earth, simplified our lifestyles and partnered with others to heal our planet. The practices listed here are not meant to catalogue every effort we have made but to provide a sampling of actions that have been successful for us.
There is much deeper and farther to go in our journey to ecological conversion. Boldness, creativity, and collaboration will be the hallmarks of our future actions.
The Los Angeles Province Fall DESIGNS magazine will be in the mail soon! The theme this season is “The Power of the Present Moment.”
Many of our sisters and associates sent in beautiful reflections of their experience with how to get into the present moment. We were not able to fit all these pearls of wisdom in the magazine, so we are highlighting them here.
This one is from Sister Joann Heinritz, CSJ:
Gift of energy: St. Irenaeus said: “The glory of God is a person fully alive!”
+Medieval architects of the cathedrals of Europe believed that the soul could enter and leave the body through the soles of the feet. It is for this reason that “soul to sole” bears profound significance.
+Accessing the energy of the holy ground available to us through our feet, connecting the soles of our feet to the soul of our being grounds and anchors us in the present moment.
+The Early Church theologian, Augustine of Hippo said: “Solviture ambulando,” — “It is solved by walking…”
+Reflect: Presence is meditation in motion. Awaken me to this moment, this wonderful precious moment of being alive!
Ignacio ambled up to my desk, catching his breath after climbing the stairs to my second-floor cubicle. As a St. Joseph Worker, I am a case manager at Homeboy Industries, and Ignacio is my client. I turned to him, wondering if he needed something or if he was there for his usual reason, just to catch up. Getting to hear the inner thoughts and random details of their day is my favorite part of working with the homies.
He dropped himself in a chair at my desk and told me, “I’m in a situation.” Oh boy, I think, this could mean anything. He continued, “I lost my EBT and my Medi-Cal.” I responded with sympathy, adding that I know a lot of homies whose benefits have been taken away recently. Once I finished explaining the steps to re-enroll for them, he clarified, “I was riding my bike at the protest, and they must’ve fallen out of my pocket.” At this point I realized that he didn’t mean he got his benefits taken away, he meant that he lost the physical cards that allow him to access these benefits.
As if he’d entirely forgotten his distress over misplacing his wallet, he quickly pivoted, “But did you see me on the news though?” Before I could answer (I hadn’t seen him on the news, by the way) he pulled his phone out of his pocket and opened it to a clip of him at the protests pedaling in circles on a bike far too small, dressed in a Mexican soccer jersey and flying a Mexican flag from his backpack. In the video, he’s surrounded by police with expressionless faces, a sharp contrast to the pure joy strewn across Ignacio’s face.
We watched the video together, laughing as we noted that the bike is far too small and that Ignacio was lost in the giddiness of the moment, entirely unconcerned with the impression he made on those around him, specifically the cops. As I sat there, I was reminded of the child-like wonder and joy a life of service and justice requires. Not only an ability to laugh and have fun, but a commitment to being our true selves, riding a bike that’s too small because it’s funny, embracing who we are—flying our flags.
Rosie Schlidt (fifth from the right) with her fellow St. Joseph Workers and Sisters Julie Fertsch, SSJ (left) and Judy Molosky, CSJ (right).
I happened to be filming an Instagram takeover for my university that day, so I asked Ignacio if he’d be willing to be in it. He agreed, so I explained to him what he should talk about: his name, how long he’s been at Homeboy, and a fun fact. This was the first time he’d heard of the concept of a fun fact, so I tried to explain it to him as this: something interesting about him that we wouldn’t necessarily know just by looking at him. I gave my own example: I am left-handed. He nodded, saying he was ready, so I began recording.
Starting with his name, he continued to his experience at Homeboy, and then we got to the fun fact portion. At this point he paused for a moment, reflecting, and then continued again, “A fun fact about me is that I am humble. I am kind. I am a good person, and I love giving back. No matter where I am at in life, I always like to help others out.” Behind the camera, I couldn’t wipe the smile from my face as I thought to myself that I wish this was the direction we all headed toward discussing our fun facts. I am humble. I am kind. I am a good person.
These moments with Ignacio sum up a lot of what I’ve learned in the six months so far of my year of service. The long winding road of justice can be tiring and challenging, especially when we get bogged down by its seriousness and lost in the reality that there is no concrete destination. But for justice work to be sustainable, it requires those moments along the way—the moments of humor and joy, unbridled individuality and confidence in what makes us ourselves, our fun facts. When we share these moments with others, we learn more about who we are individually and collectively, and the slow work of justice continues.
375th Anniversary
The Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet join with our fellow Sisters of St. Joseph congregations in celebrating the 375th anniversary of our founding.
In 1650, six ordinary women, under the guidance of Jean Pierre Medaille, SJ, joined together in community under the patronage of St. Joseph in Le Puy-en-Velay, France. These six women had a common desire to grow in their love of God and serve the unmet needs of the people around them, whom they came to call their “dear neighbors.” From their humble beginnings in a small kitchen, the order grew to include communities all over the world.
As a part of our 375th Jubilee Anniversary Celebration, we’ve asked our sisters and charism partners to write blog posts reflecting on integral parts of our history and spirituality, illuminating how these symbols and traditions continue to shape our present and future.
The Habit
The habit is, without a doubt, the most recognizable, external sign of a vowed religious woman. The St. Louis Catholic Archives Collective writes that these iconic garments and women religious’ sameness of dress communicated their vocation in a way that transcended the boundaries of language and geographical distance.”
However, in the aftermath of the Second Vatican Council, communities of Catholic sisters re-examined the habit. The archives collective explains, “For the better part of two millennia, contemptus mundi (“contempt of the world”) was a defining feature of monastic life and nuns’ traditional habits signified their withdrawal from worldly concerns.”
For Catholic sisters engaged in active ministry, “contempt of the world” did not and does not reflect their religious identity. As a part of a call to return to foundational principles and practices, many congregations, like the Sisters of St. Joseph, made the decision to switch to more contemporary attire.
Founding of the Sisters of St. Joseph
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 the communities. 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.”
These women had no monastery but lived together in a “common life.” The Règlements instructed the women to leave their house only “to go to the churches, to visit the sick, hospitals, prisons, and to perform other exercises of charity.” This strict sounding rule left a loophole wide enough for the women to address any and every need. The women did not wear a habit but “their clothing, dress and standard of living will be appropriate to their social class and the background from which they came.” Many chose to wear widow’s black so that they could move about in public unaccompanied and minister to the poor.
Finally, in 1650, six women of the “Little Design” joined together in community under the patronage of St. Joseph in Le Puy-en-Velay, France. This religious community, without cloister or habit, devoted themselves to the needs of ordinary people, living among them and offering their lives in service to God and these dear neighbors without distinction.
Our Habit
Despite the origins of the order, by 1700, many Sisters of St. Joseph wore a habit. What changed? A single word.
In 1650, the “Little Design” community was formalized as the Sisters of St. Joseph by Bishop Henri de Maupas. His establishing speech to the sisters was recorded in the original Constitutions of 1694. It said that the bishop “gave them the rule and prescribed a [emphasis added] form of habit.” In another document, supposedly published in 1693, it says that Bishop de Maupas “gave them the rule and he prescribed the [emphasis added] kind of habit” they should wear.
Theologian and historian Sister Mary McGlone, CSJ writes, “With the change of one word, the whole idea of ‘dressing modestly’ could be changed to insist that the sisters wear a particular kind of habit which would distinguish them as women with a special status.”
Wearing the Habit
Each sister made her own habit. In the novitiate, novices would learn how to make the habit by sewing and reconstructing the parts of an unused habit. A sister’s habit had to meet detailed specifications to be up to standard.
Taken from the Manual of Customs:
“The habit of black woolen serge, nearly two yards wide when double, should not quite touch the ground. The sleeves, twelve inches wide when doubled, should reach to the tips of the fingers, and should be made with narrow rolled hem, and fitted to the waist by two plaits on the back of the shoulders.
“The waist of the habit is perfectly plain; hooked in front and covered with the front width of the skirt, which is longer than the others, and gathered into six even plaits, three and three, turned towards the center, which are held in place by a strong black tape or braid sewn on the inside and tied around the waist of the habit. It is then adjusted over the front of the waist and fastened at the upper end to the waist.
“The fronts of the under veil are made of the same material as the veil; the back shall be any black material. The veil is made with narrow rolled hem and should extend 6 inches below the waist and be 32 inches wide. The cornet is 19 inches long, 5 ½ inches wide when finished. These are folded over the top on two sides and pinned. The band is 12 inches long, 3 inches wide when finished. Tabs in the back are pinned in place.”
While the standard habit was made of black woolen surge, some sisters wore a variation of the habit in a lighter, white material.
Sisters who worked in hospitals, such as nurses, wore the white habit while engaged in their ministry. They wore an apron on top of the habit to keep it clean. On days these sisters did not work at the hospital, they wore the standard black.
Notably, all the Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet in Perú wore white habits as well.
Hazardous Habits
While the habit served as a simple, external sign of a sister’s vocation, at times, it put sisters into physical danger.
One of the first Sisters of St. Joseph to travel to the United States, Sister St. Protais Déboille, kept a journal recording their 1836 trip. Upon the sisters’ arrival, Ursuline Sisters and Sisters of Charity advised them not to wear their habit in public because “people would think that some nuns had escape[d] from the convent.”
The St. Louis Catholic Archives Collective writes, “Catholics in nineteenth-century America faced considerable anti-Catholic prejudice from American Protestants. Women often bore the brunt of this prejudice, as Protestants often assumed women who entered a convent were either kidnapped or coerced.”
The habit became a beacon signaling the sisters’ foreignness, their deviation from the rest of American society and their dangerous independence. The archives collective continues, explaining, “The Sisters of St. Joseph and most women religious had to travel incognito in secular clothing while conducting their American missionary work to avoid insults and harassment that included death threats, convent burnings and bodily assaults.”
Not only did the connotation of the habit sometimes put sisters in harm’s way, but occasionally the material of the habit itself was dangerous.
When the sisters were sent to minister in Perú, their group was comprised of nurses and teachers. As was custom in the United States, the nurses brought their white habits with them. The teachers, however, brought their standard, black woolen surge habits. Quickly, they realized that black, woolen habits were untenable, especially in a Peruvian summer. The teachers decided to adopt the white habit of their nursing peers.
While our sisters arrived in Perú in 1962, this photo was taken in 1964. Here they all are in white!
Returning to Our Roots
In response to the Second Vatican Council, congregations across the world took on a spirit of renewal. The 1965 council document Perfectae caritatis called religious women and men to “…both a constant return to the sources of Christian life in general and to the primitive inspirations of the institutes, and their adaption to the changed conditions of our time.” The Sisters of St. Joseph began an intensive study of the Gospels and the spirit of our founders.
Figuring Out What Fits
When the Sisters of St. Joseph reviewed their beginnings, they discovered that the original six sisters had come together in a community without a cloister or habit. The challenge of renewal was to adapt their current practice to the spirit of their origins in the modern world.
They did not immediately abandon the habit. Guided by communal discernment, the Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet went through a period of sartorial experimentation.
In 1967, our sisters in St. Paul used several variations of a modified habit. Instead of the head band, cornet and guimpe, the sisters wore a simple veil around their hair. They had multiple combinations of suits, skirts and dresses to choose from. The sisters in St. Paul even created a video to demonstrate these new variations on the habit.
Other sisters tried out lay clothes. Sister Rosemary O’Malley, CSJ described watching the first sister to wear lay clothes in Ica, Perú: “The day when the first Ica sister dressed in lay clothes left for school, all of us were watching from the window to see what the students’ reaction would be. They all came running toward her and they shouted ‘Hermana! Hermana! What time do we have our test?’ Ha! That’s how important the habit is, they didn’t even notice the difference!”
Through all of this, some sisters continued to wear the habit. These sisters felt that their habit was deeply connected to their vocational identity. Having spent most of their lives in the habit, they felt no need to try the experimental dress.
In the end, the Sisters of St. Joseph decided: to each her own. Today, our sisters are welcome to wear the full habit, a modified habit, a simple veil or lay clothing.
The Spirit of Our Founders
“…the Sister of St. Joseph moves always towards profound love of God and love of neighbor without distinction from whom she does not separate herself…”
Consensus Statement of Sisters of St. Joseph by Father Jean-Pierre Medaille, SJ
During the Second Vatican Council, Mother Eucharista Galvin wrote to the sisters in Perú: “It is a promising trend that in much of the recent writing, the point is being stressed that externals such as the forms of prayers, type of habit are rather unimportant. The important thing is that we try to love as Christ loved and work upon it in practical, down-to-earth situations and not in theory.”
Whether or not our sisters wear the habit, we have always and will always be motivated in all things by love, the central commandment of Jesus—a love that seeks to achieve unity of neighbor with neighbor and neighbor with God. Faithful to our heritage and to our gift of unifying love, we reach out to the dear neighbor, whoever they may be, whatever the need they might have.
As our congregation’s constitution states, we, along with our partners in mission, are called to “…use our gifts generously in embracing the command of Jesus: pray, heal, teach, love and forgive. In gentleness, peace and joy we strive to become more loving and effective instruments of Christ’s zeal, knowing he is faithful in accomplishing His mission through us.”
The Los Angeles Province Fall DESIGNS magazine will be in the mail soon! The theme this season is “The Power of the Present Moment.”
Many of our sisters and associates sent in beautiful reflections of their experience with how to get into the present moment. We were not able to fit all these pearls of wisdom in the magazine, so we are highlighting them here.
This one is from Sister Barbara Sullivan, CSJ:
I am not the person who should be writing a reflection on the Present Moment. For way too many years I lived in the “don’t run ahead of grace” mode. Now that I am 88 I am not running ahead of anything.
I am delighting in not having a full schedule for the day. Even with no plans the day fills with life.
I am noticing the gentle breeze outside my window.
When I was in Leadership in St. Louis we often had difficult decisions to make. One time we scheduled a meeting to decide a difficult decision. Five meetings later we still needed the missing piece. Kitty learned what we needed to know at a pizza party. Important things happen in present moments and you can’t schedule them. Sometimes there are several present moments before one reaches a conclusion.
I find the Present Moment tells me I can let go and trust that what I need will be given.
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.
Contact
Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet Congregational Offices
10777 Sunset Office Drive, Ste. 10 St. Louis, MO 63127
