Sisters of St. Joseph celebrating 350 years of serving God's people

The order of women religious (celebrating its 350th anniversary this month) had been founded in 1650, more than a century before. It was the third try at creating a non-cloistered religious order: St. Francis de Sales had already started the Visitandines and St. Vincent de Paul the Daughters of Charity, but the Sisters of St. Joseph were the first using the title "sister" to truly "go public."

Members of the new order wore the garb of widows to be seen as respectable when they traveled the streets of Le Puy, France, unaccompanied, performing corporal and spiritual works of mercy by aiding orphans and the poor.

Directed by Rev. Jean Pierre Medaille, SJ, the order blossomed from a handful of women into a congregation that ran schools, orphanages and hospitals throughout France.

Spared

One survivor was Mother St. John Fontbonne, who was released in 1794 on the eve of her execution. Ironically, some of her fellow nuns who were also spared were heartbroken, according to Sister Anne Clark, CSJ, the order's archivist and a resident of St. Joseph's Provincial House in Latham.

"To them," she noted, "God didn't think they were good enough to be martyred."

Recovery

In 1836, thousands of miles away, a measles epidemic struck St. Louis, and scores of children were left hearing-impaired. Bishop Joseph Rosati of that diocese, who knew the Sisters of St. Joseph taught the deaf in France, begged them to come to America to help.

"And they immediately began to learn English," said Sister Mary Rose Noonan, CSJ, communications director for the St. Joseph Sisters' Albany Province. One benefactor, the Countesse de La Rochejacquelin, even sold her jewels to earn the nuns' passage on a ship from Le Havre, France, to the U.S.

In America

The sisters lived above the log-cabin school where they taught and made lace to sell in order to support themselves. They established two convents and St. Joseph's Institute for the Deaf, which still exists in St. Louis.

In 1858, the sisters were issued another challenge: coming to Oswego (then part of the Albany Diocese) to teach the children of Irish and Italian immigrants who had traveled up the Erie Canal to find work in factories. Shortly afterward, a group of St. Joseph nuns came to Cohoes for the same purpose.

Spreading out

* In the late 1800s, the sisters established St. Mary's Hospital and St. Mary's School in Amsterdam;

* in 1861, they began working in Cathedral parish in Albany;

* in 1878, they founded St. Mary's Home in Binghamton, an orphanage; and

* in 1893, they founded St. Joseph's Infant Home in Troy.

"We were really blessed in our reason for being," Sister Mary Rose said thoughtfully. "Each religious community has a gift, ours being `unity and reconciliation,' which ties into the needs of the time. Every problem you encounter has to do with [that theme]."

New challenges

The Sisters of St. Joseph had tried never to lose sight of meeting the needs of the day. Sister Anne recalled that hoboes who came to the door decades ago were always referred to as "St. Joseph" to remind the sisters not to turn them away. But in the wake of the Council, they began to examine whether they were meeting the needs of society in the best way.

"What have we done to separate ourselves from the `dear neighbor'?" the sisters asked themselves. Consequently, they began training members as social workers, catechists and in many other ministries to be more hospitable. They also changed from their traditional black-and-white habits to normal clothes.

"Changing the habit was a huge change for the people," Sister Mary Rose stated, "but it symbolized trying not to separate ourselves from the `dear neighbor.'"

Many ministries

"We have opportunities for education we didn't have in the 1600s," explained Sister Anne. "We have lawyers and doctors and all sorts of professional women. We can use education to speak for the poor."

The order now has four U.S. provinces, each covering several dioceses -- Albany, St. Louis, St. Paul and Los Angeles -- and vice-provinces in Hawaii and Peru. St. Joseph Sisters from the Albany Diocese serve as far away as Florida and Alaska.

Enabling laity

In many cases, Sister Mary Rose added, the sisters' aim is to begin a ministry that can be continued by laity. With the drop in membership of religious orders across the U.S., women religious are not always available to staff a certain position continually.

The sisters even minister via the internet now, corresponding with the homebound and networking with members in other areas.

As for the order's future, Sister Mary Rose said, "It's really hard to tell. The exciting thing for me is that we're really in tune with responding to the needs now, with the reason we were founded. And because we're fewer in number, we're getting really creative. The needs are going to be there. We have to take seriously that our mission is to bring Jesus to those needs as best we can."

(The Albany Province of the Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet is celebrating its 350th anniversary April 30, with a special 3 p.m. Mass at the Provincial House in Latham, celebrated by Bishop Howard J. Hubbard of the Albany Diocese and Bishop James Moynihan of Syracuse. For information, call 783-3500.)

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