Jewels from Jane, Feb. 24

"Bishop Gerald O'Hara described this order of Sisters working in his diocese [Savannah] to Cardinal Dougherty of Philadelphia in a February 24, 1944 letter while requesting permission for the sisters to seek vocations in Philadelphia. He affirmed, 'The Congregation of the Sisters of St. Joseph here is small and the Sisters have great difficulty in securing vocations. It is for this reason that they would like to try the more populous Catholic centers.' He suggests allowing the Sisters to speak to upper class high school girls of Philadelphia in order to recruit girls for the order. To Archbishop Spellman of New York, Bishop O'Hara recounts that 'here in Georgia we have a small province of the Sisters of St. Joseph, who have charge of various schools and other institutions in the diocese. These Sisters are doing heroic work in the Southland, but...they are greatly hampered by the fewness of vocations that they secure here where the Catholic population is so small.' These letters are revealing, for they clearly give evidence that the Sisters had difficulty in finding enough religious vocations to staff all the apostolates of their province.

"Despite the growth and success of the Augusta Province, the lack of vocations resulted in the merging of the Province with the Saint Louis Province in 1961. For some years other Sisters of Saint Joseph Provinces in the United States including Los Angeles, Saint Louis, Saint Paul, and Latham, New York, had sent sisters to help staff the various institutions in the Augusta Province. Mount Saint Joseph Academy merged with Boys Catholic School on November 5, 1957 when Bishop Gerald O'Hara dedicated a new school named Aquinas High School on Highland Avenue. Six Marist Brothers taught the boys while six Sisters of Saint Joseph taught the girls. The first sisters at Aquinas were Sisters Marie Cecile Bennett, Bernardine Torley, Carmelita Dowling, Marie Celine Gorman, Victoria Marie Ogilvie, and Mary Bernard Schweers. Mount Saint Joseph on Monte Sano Avenue continued as an elementary school until its sale to Saint Mary's on-the-Hill Parish located on the 1400 block of Monte Sano Avenue in 1960. The last elementary class of Mount Saint Joseph graduated in June 1960, and by 1961 Saint Mary's on-the-Hill Catholic School was operating at 1218-20 Monte Sano Avenue, the previous location of the high school of Mount Saint Joseph (the corner of Monte Sano and Helen). The new building that housed Saint Mary's School opened in the fall of 1960 and was staffed by seven Sisters of Saint Joseph and lay teachers.

"The Superior General of the Sisters of Saint Joseph of Carondelet in Saint Louis, Mother Eucharista Galvin, wrote to Bishop Thomas McDonough on March 2, 1961, to inform him that Rome had authorized the merging of the provinces and had set September 1, 1961 as the official date for the transfer. She assured the Bishop that the merging was for the benefit of the Sisters and their apostolate in the Diocese of Savannah. Later the same year, a week before the transfer, the last Superior of the Augusta Province, Sister Eulalia Murray, informed Bishop McDonough on particulars of the transfer...

"The Sisters of Saint Joseph have left an indelible mark in the Catholic educational system of Augusta. Their journey of dedication to provide quality Catholic education to Augusta's children lives on through Saint Mary's Elementary School and Aquinas High School. The 1200 block of Monte Sano Avenue may no longer house the once beautiful and picturesque campus of Mount Saint Joseph and the Sisters' of Saint Joseph Convent, but the efforts of these pious and hardworking women live on today in the many lives they touched and in those who continue to study on this block of Augusta."

From "A Journey of Dedication through Education: Sisters of Saint Joseph in Augusta, Georgia" by Pablo Manuel Migone, June, 2005

Jewels from Jane, Jan. 31

January 31, 1956

Dear Mother Provincial,

At a meeting of the General Council on January 26, 1956, it was unanimously decided that we should ask for volunteers for the proposed mission to Japan. Those who volunteer should have made final vows by September, 1956, and should not have reached their thirty-sixth birthday. They should be told that, unless an exceptional situation arises, they will be expected to remain in Japan from eight to ten years before returning for a home visit.

Will you please make these things known to them when you send copies of the enclosed form [application request] to each of your houses. Please ask the Sisters who wish to complete the form to have it in your hands by March 15, 1956.

Please do not make your final decision of the Sister for the assignment this year until we return from our visit to Japan. At that time we can tell you something of the health, education, character, and personality needs, etc., which those who are experienced in the field may recommend. Then you may be able to make a better choice.

That God may bless you and our Province is my most earnest prayer.

Very sincerely yours in the Sacred Heart,

Mother Eucharista Galvin
Superior General

Letter written to provincial superiors from Mother Eucharista Galvin.
The Congregation is celebrating fifty years in Japan this year.

Jewels from Jane, August 1

"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