June, 2007
June 26, 2007
We Change the World Together
I am the Executive Director for the Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet Ministries Foundation. We raise and distribute funds to support the network of programs in which the Sisters of St. Joseph serve.
When you support the Ministries Foundation of the Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet St. Paul Province, you become part of a healing network of community –based programs that provide help and hope to more than 14, 000 individuals each year with a community and family impact that is many times greater. And, our Sisters are just scratching the surface.
The estimated value of our Sisters’ network exceeds $4.5 million. Sisters of St. Joseph through our own limited resources, our time, and our labor, contribute nearly $1.75 million each year. In addition, thousands of individual and corporate donors fund the network through financial donations, gifts in kind, and volunteer hours.
Sisters of St. Joseph know we can’t fund this network alone. We need everyone’s help just to maintain our current programs.
But we want to do much more. We see needs in our neighborhoods and we want to respond. And that requires many more generous supporters to join us so we can expand our network of help and hope.
Join our Sisters of St. Joseph in this work!
Possumus!
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June 22, 2007
Who are the Sisters?
I was recently surprised by the question, “Who are the Sisters of St. Joseph?” Here is a quick, thumbnail sketch.
The Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet in St. Paul are a religious community of women. Our order was founded in 1650 in France with a unique mission: go out into the city and do whatever you can to help people in need. This apostolic, entrepreneurial mission, which our Sisters brought to Minnesota more than 150 years ago, has been the driving force behind the founding of hundreds of schools, hospitals, and programs to assist low-income men, women and children.
Sisters of St. Joseph see what needs to be done and do it. And when a program we have started becomes established in our community, we often turn it over to others who share our vision and passion. This frees up the Sisters of St Joseph to go back into the city doing everything we can to help our brothers and sisters whom we call our dear neighbors.
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June 11, 2007
Sisters Always
It has been less than six months since Sister Rosita arrived in Adiedo, a small village in Kenya in order to bring them clean water. In this short time, this one Sister of St. Joseph of Carondelet created a web of support from Hawaii to Alaska to Minnesota to Arizona to Kansas just to name a few. In addition, on the ground in Kenya, no further than one hour away from where Rosita is living, we discover a woman there who has also been working to bring water to the villages and guess what? She once was a Sister of St. Joseph of Carondelet!
I‘ve learned that once a Sister of St. Joseph, always a Sister of St. Joseph. I refer to these incredible women as “Alumnuns.”
These amazing Alumnuns respond to the needs of the time in their own lives. They run school systems, hospitals, church groups, and families. They’ve established soup kitchens, committees of social justice, prayer groups, raised children and grandchildren. They live in the desert, on farms, in the inner-city, and in suburbs.
They continue to serve our dear neighbors in need. They continue to be part of the loving embrace of help and hope that the Sisters of St. Joseph extend to every part of our society.
They teach me that women religious are expanding beyond belief. Hope is here. Join us!
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June 5, 2007
Right Relationships
Sisters of St. Joseph speak so often about “right relationships” that I forget others may not understand what we mean.
Living in “right relationship” is a way of living that takes into consideration the interconnection of all life and life’s desire to flourish as well.
Let me give a small example of living in right relationship. I love coffee and begin every morning with a nice hot cup. In order to know if I am in right relationship in this part of my daily routine, I ask myself questions like the following:
- Who owns the coffee plantation?
- Do the coffee growers receive just compensation?
- Do the coffee harvesters receive just compensation?
- Are the coffee beans free of harmful chemicals, therefore safe for those harvesting the coffee crop as well as safe for me to consume?
- Are any poisonous substances getting into the ground water that will affect life downstream as well as life in the stream?
This kind of thinking can be applied to each part of our daily lives: what we eat, energy we consume, our mode of transportation, products we buy.
You get the point.
I invite you to look closely at your life. Think about the way you live. Analyze whether your life choices allow other life — people, plants and animals — to flourish or diminish. Allow enough time to peel back all of the implications of your choices. Once you have uncovered some relationships that are not right, take time to determine what other choices you can make to right those relationships. It will take awhile, but it’s important. Somebody’s life is dependent on it.
Possumus!
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