"During her first year as General Superior, Mother Eucharista Galvin received a letter from the Maryknoll Fathers asking for the help of the Sisters of St. Joseph in the Diocese of Kyoto, Japan. Before making a decision about the request, she and her assistant, Sister Edward Marie Mahaney, traveled to Japan to understand the needs and see how the Sisters of St. Joseph might respond. The experience of the trip impressed them very favorably and within one year, four Sisters of St. Joseph had arrived at the port of Yokohama to found the first mission of the Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet outside the territories of the United States. Founding the mission to Japan, the Congregation initiated a new policy in which every province would share in the privilege of sending personnel to the missions. The first four sisters assigned to Japan were Sisters Irmina Kelehan (SP), Eva Francis Cereghino (LA), Thomas Paul Hoodack (A), and Serena John O'Meara [Rachel](SL).
"As had happened in 1836 with the first six French missionaries to leave for America, the General Superior accompanied the missionaries to Japan to their port of embarkation in California. There, before they left, she gave them a letter to read on their journey. That letter explained her hopes for them.
August 1, 1956
Dear Sister Irmina and Community,
While you are enjoying your two weeks' sea voyage, I hope you will have time to think along with me about your mission and its importance to our Congregation and to the people of Japan.
You are planting a new branch of our Community in a foreign country, the first since the one planted by the little band of Sisters from France who ventured to America in the eighteen thirties. On the banks of the Mississippi, at the little village of Carondelet, then six miles from the city of St. Louis, those sisters undertook a transplanting in America, which has grown into a mighty tree. At present there are over four thousand Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet, direct descendants of this original foundation, and over 12,000 Sisters in off-shoots from the original planting in America.
These first Sisters opened a novitiate as soon as candidates applied for entrance, and you have permission to do likewise. We hope and pray that the members who seek holiness in our Kyoto novitiate will increase through the years so that, from a small beginning, God may give an increase of ten, a hundred, or even a thousand fold in Japanese vocations in answer to your prayers and ours for workers in His vineyard.
You have probably heard some comments to the effect that you are needed in your homeland and should be allowed to serve the Church there. Why are we, nevertheless, asking you to sacrifice so much by sending you among strangers and non-Christians?
First of all, we are urged by obedience to Christ's own command, "Go and teach all nations;" second, we are impelled by the expressed wish of the Holy See that all religious congregations who can do so help the Church by entering the foreign mission field. These are the basic and most essential reasons. There are others. A branch which stops sending forth new growth becomes less productive and eventually dies. No matter how much our work is needed in our homeland, if we settle down to physically comfortable but enervating surroundings in a spiritually frustrating environment, some of us may become somewhat spiritually imperturbable and unproductive. We love our "little Institute" too much to risk that happening. In fact, the opening of this new mission has already, I believe, enlivened the zeal of the whole Congregation. Everyone can have a part in praying for its success and in helping provide the material needs for the work. You, yourselves, are demonstrating to all that our Sisters are willing to leave creature comforts and the enjoyment of friends and relatives to pursue souls....
This project is a concerted effort to help Sisters, pupils, and friends enhance their zeal and charity. So it is partly for our own welfare that we launch forth to gain souls for Christ in Japan. Our desire for an even holier membership is our hope that God will reward our efforts by giving the Japanese people among whom you work the graces they need to accept the true Faith. Your and our growth in holiness will be the chief force to obtain the graces which will bring forth fruit abundantly.
Souls are won usually in an atmosphere of peace. We hope that your living among the Japanese people will produce better relations between our country and theirs. You will represent the best in Christianity and in American citizenship. You will bring the Prince of Peace with you as you light the sanctuary lamp in your convent. Your solace and inspiration in difficult and trying situations will be that Christ is with you and that the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass is offered daily in your home.
The people must learn to know and love you before they will come to you to learn about the Church. Your first need, therefore, is to master the language - first, the universal language of selfless love and, second, the tongue of the Japanese people.
We trust God to answer our earnest prayer for your well-being and success. We, who work with you spiritually and materially for a "great harvest of souls", will eagerly read of your experiences in the cherished letters you write home.
I am not going to burden you with advice because we have chosen you as very responsible members and because you will have to depend upon the more experienced missioners in the field for advice. Mother Joseph, the foundress of the Maryknoll Sisters, will give you the key to the chief character traits needed for a missionary Sister in the following quotation, "I would have her distinguished by Christlike charity, a limpid simplicity of soul, heroic generosity, selflessness, unswerving loyalty, prudent zeal, an orderly mind, gracious courtesy, an adaptable disposition, solid piety, and the saving grace of a sense of humor."
Now, my dear Sisters, even though our hearts urge us do otherwise, we send you forth to help plant and cultivate the seeds of the true Faith in souls. You must be patient in waiting for the increase. It will be our privilege and our joy to be with you praying for God's grace for you in your needs; and it is also our pleasure and our duty to pledge to you all the material aid in our power to further the work. Again, may God bestow on you abundant graces for your own sanctification and for your apostolate. God bless you and keep you near to Him always.
Devotedly your in the Heart of Christ,
Sr. Eucharista [Galvin]"
from Mary Mc Glone's book: Comunidad para el Mundo: The History of the Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet and the Vice Province of Peru
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