Founded in 1650 by Fr. Jean-Pierre Medaille, SJ, the Congregation of St. Joseph maintains its traditions in the Midwest and beyond
By Garan Santicola
Sister Erin McDonald (center) with (from left) Srs. Pat Altermatt, Jeanne Gamache, Marie Benzing and Marie Hogan on the day of Sr. Erin’s final profession of vows at Gesu Church in Detroit in 2019.
In 1650, when a group of six women in France heard the preaching of Fr. Jean-Pierre Medaille, SJ, it changed their lives forever and led to the founding of the Sisters of St. Joseph. Close to 375 years later, the Sisters live in communities on five continents, including several across the Midwest and beyond. Their work remains rooted in the Ignatian lessons their founders learned in the city of Le Puy-en-Velay in southern France.
“The Sisters would go out and divide the city,” says Sr. Carol Crepeau, CSJ, of the Sisters of St. Joseph in LaGrange Park, Ill.
“Some worked with orphans, others with widows, others with the sick. And they would come back from this work and share the state of the heart—basically how God’s spirit worked with them. Then they would say, ‘What does this mean for our house, our small community?’ Share the state of the heart and then share the order of the house.
That was the spirituality taught to them by Fr. Medaille, and that remains the heart of our spirituality today.” The Sisters arrived in St. Louis in 1836 after Bishop Joseph Rosati wrote Institute for the Deaf, an organization that has expanded to other locations and is still in operation today. The Sisters went on
to establish many separate communities throughout the country, and in 2007, the Congregation of Saint Joseph was formed to connect communities of the central United States for mutual support. Today, Sisters continue to live and work in Cleveland; Wichita; Minneapolis-St. Paul; Kalamazoo, Mich.; Tipton, Ind.; LaGrange Park, Ill.; and locations in West Virginia and Louisiana, where congregation member Sr. Helen Prejean, CSJ, author of Dead Man Walking, has carried out the majority of her anti-death penalty work and death-row inmate ministry.
IT’S ABOUT BUILDING RELATIONSHIPS, WHICH I THINK IS A BIG PART OF THE SISTERS OF ST. JOSEPH’S CHARISM.
Sister Carol Crepeau of LaGrange Park, Ill., at the hearth in Le Puy-en-Velay, France.
Sister Rose Ann Hefner, CSJ, of the Wheeling Center in West Virginia is another leader in the field of prison ministry. She spent her first decade of religious life ministering to incarcerated women in a federal prison in Alderson, W.V., and served as project director in the state prison system for the Support Services Network of the West Virginia Council of Churches. Most recently, she has immersed herself in a study of restorative justice.
“Victims and offenders sit down with community members and talk about bringing healing for the person who has been harmed, and in hearing each other’s stories, both the person harmed and the one who did the harming learn more about one another,” she says. “It’s about building relationships, which I think is a big piece of the Sisters of St. Joseph’s charism.”to Mother St. John Fontbonne about the diocese’s need for educators. They settled in a log cabin in the village of Carondelet, five miles south of St. Louis, where they founded the St. Joseph Many of the Sisters’ ministries link them to their history. For instance, Sr. Carol founded a ministry in Chicago to connect people living on the margins of society with resources necessary for survival. She also founded TEACH, a school on wheels offering free English lessons to adult learners.
In the 17th century, the Sisters made lace and ribbon to support themselves, and they taught these crafts to others. Today, the Sisters have a thriving ministry of the arts, creating music and visual works, and encouraging others to explore their artistic talents. “The arts help us to see what you wouldn’t ordinarily see,” says Sr. Marie Hogan, CSJ, of the congregation’s Nazareth Center in Kalamazoo, Mich.
The Sisters’ charitable endeavors have always been rooted in the needs of the time, and Sr. Marie has been at the forefront of the congregation’s efforts to combat human trafficking in the United States, ministering to people victimized by trafficking and helping fund an app that maintains a database of images to assist investigators.
The congregation has a long history of promoting ecological consciousness through efforts to reduce, reuse, and recycle and through the cultivation of community gardens.
In 2021, the Sisters made a commitment to the Laudato Si Action Platform. “We involved Sisters, associates, and employees in developing objectives and initiatives to flow from each of the seven Laudato Si goals,” says Sr. Pat Bergen, CSJ, of LaGrange Park, Ill.
Over the past year, the Sisters have focused on ecological education, ecological spirituality, and community resilience and empowerment, and over the summer they entered a critical phase of an important environmental project that had been set in motion years ago. It began with Hurricane Katrina when their New Orleans Center was decimated by flooding. The building was later struck by lightning, which caused fire damage, and so it was deconstructed, all salvageable material donated to Habitat for Humanity.
The city of Le Puy-en-Velay, France.
The Sisters began “praying to discover some way that this sacred land could minister to the city of New Orleans as our sisters had done for years,” Sr. Pat says. What emerged from that prayer was a plan to turn the land into a park that could also serve as an overflow point during hurricane flooding. The composition of the soil will purify the water and then, after the hurricane, the pipes can be opened, returning the water gently to the canals, leaving playing fields and an oak garden available to people once again.
The project is called the Mirabeau Water Garden Watershed and it consists of a design that can be replicated in any urban area, Sr. Pat says. This past summer, on the 18th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, the city of New Orleans sent a letter of intent to one of the bidders on the project. “We are on our way,” Sr. Pat says.
While focusing their energies on works at home, the Sisters also take pilgrimages to the International Center of the Sisters of St. Joseph nestled at the base of a crater in the walled, medieval city of Le Puy-en-Velay. Sister Carol leads yearly trips to the city built around three volcanic mountains known as puys. “If you stand at the door of the International Center and look up, you can follow the edge of the crater, which is a symbol for us in that we’re held there, and our history is honored there, and the experience of the pilgrimage to that place inspires us to rise up just like the puys,” she says. Dramatic sights rest atop the three high points, including a 9th-century chapel, the 12th-century Notre Dame du Puy Cathedral, and a 19th-century Virgin and Child statue that stands 52 feet tall. Sister Marie fondly recalls walking in the footsteps of the first Sisters.
SHARE THE STATE OF THE HEART AND THEN SHARE THE ORDER OF THE HOUSE. THAT WAS THE SPIRITUALITY TAUGHT TO THEM BY FR. MEDAILLE, AND THAT REMAINS THE HEART OF OUR SPIRITUALITY TODAY.
“We went to Mass where they went to Mass 350 years ago, and there was a fountain where our sisters would have gone to get their water, and I was splashing my hands in the water,” she says. Sister Rose sees the Sisters’ work today in continuity with the history of the congregation and points to that history as reason for hope. Having visited Le Puy-en-Velay three times, she says, “The most moving part of it for me was visiting the hearth that’s still where the Sisters lived in 1650. There’s this huge fireplace that’s now in the basement of a building. Just to imagine these six women sitting around this fireplace in the evening talking about dividing the neighborhood and asking, ‘What are we going to do tomorrow for the dear neighbor?’ From that grew the Sisters of St. Joseph on five continents. When people get concerned about vocations, I remind them of those humble beginnings and that we started with just six women.”
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Photo: Courtesy of Xavier University