Franciscan Sisters of the Most Blessed Virgin Mary of the Angels

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The Franciscan Sisters of the Blessed Virgin Mary of the Angels ( order abbreviation : FBMVA , Sorores Franciscanae Beatae Mariae Virginis Angelorum ), also known as Waldbreitbacher Franciscan Sisters , are a congregation of the regulated Third Order of St. Francis , to which a large number of Franciscan Sisters founded in the 19th century - Belongs to religious orders ; A distinction must be made between them and the non-regulated lay groups outside the monasteries, which were formed to form the Ordo Franciscanus Saecularis (OFS, formerly the Franciscan Community, FG).

Waldbreitbach, Marienhaus Monastery, Antoniushaus

The mother house of the Waldbreitbach Franciscan Sisters is the Marienhaus monastery in the Waldbreitbach district of Glockscheid .

history

Marienhaus monastery : Antoniushaus and Forum Antoniuskirche (former Antoniuskapelle)

On March 13, 1863, Rosa Flesch , daughter of an oil miller in the Fockenbachtal near Waldbreitbach, founded the order with her companions Maria Bonner and Gertrud Beißel. At this point in time, these women and a few helpers were already running a simple poor, nursing and orphanage on the Kapellenberg, where the Marienhaus monastery is located today.

The order, for the establishment of which the Waldbreitbacher pastor Jakob Gomm was initially reluctant to give his approval, grew rapidly. In 1878 it already had 100 sisters in 21 branches. At this point the Foundress was no longer Superior General; Obituaries at the time indicated that she had voluntarily withdrawn “out of exhaustion”, but a publication by Johannes Kracht (2005) corroborated older theses that Margaretha Rosa Flesch - called Mother Rosa - was the victim of intrigue through a manipulated election of Rector Konrad Probst in the alliance with her successor sister Agatha Simons became. Under their aegis, the Marienhaus monastery largely received its current appearance. “Mother Rosa” lived, most recently handicapped, for almost 30 years until her death on March 25, 1906 as a simple “herb nurse” in the mother house, without the younger generation sisters knowing their true identity. In the year Mother Rosa died, 900 sisters in 67 branches in what is now the federal states of North Rhine-Westphalia , Rhineland-Palatinate and Saarland belonged to the order.

On December 12, 1912, the order received papal approbation from Pius X.

In the first half of the 20th century, the order expanded abroad. In 1923 Waldbreitbacher Franciscan Sisters emigrated to the USA and worked primarily in nursing as Franciscan Sisters of the Blessed Virgin Mary from the Angels ; Today, their social radius of action is expanded to include childcare, pastoral care, asylum seekers' assistance and other forms of social work. The branch founded in the Netherlands in 1931 - Franciscanessen van onze lieve vrouw van engelen - is threatened with extinction in the 21st century due to aging; In 2003 there were only 13 sisters left between Gelderland and Noord-Brabant . The Irmas Francescanas de Nostra Senhora dos Anjos in Brazil have been working on projects since 1958 in educational work and general development aid. For example, a project that was started in 1996 and named after Madre Rosa , the founder of the order , looks after 300 children in the slums of Bacabal in the fight against street crime and drug addiction. Further initiatives started in Portugal and Mozambique in the late 1990s.

Publications since the middle of the 20th century have worked towards a rehabilitation of Mother Rosa, which has been proposed for beatification in the Vatican since 1957. In 2006, in the 100th year of the founder's death, retrospectives on the history of the order and the person of Mother Rosa took place in some of the hospitals managed by the Waldbreitbach Franciscan Sisters.

Mother Rosa was beatified on May 4th, 2008 in Trier Cathedral. Pope Benedict XVI had given permission for this.

Order rule

On September 16, 1869, the first rule of the order was confirmed by the Trier bishop Matthias Eberhard .

"The sisters commit themselves to the works of active charity:

  • To raise poor abandoned children free of charge as far as possible and to train them to become virtuous, hard-working people in female handicrafts even after leaving school.
  • To care for the poor, sick and old abandoned people free of charge in and outside the home. "

This rule has been modified several times. Since December 8, 1982, Pope John Paul II approved the rule of unity based on the three vows of poverty, obedience and celibacy for 22 male and 382 female congregations of the regulated Third Order.

Articles of Association and Organization

On October 21, 1869 the statutes of the order were adopted. In 2006 the statutes in the 1985 version apply.

The legislature is the general chapter, which is convened every 6 years (previously every 3 years) and deliberates for 10 days. Capitulars who are entitled to vote are the head of the order, the regional superiors and delegates freely chosen from among the sisters. The task of the general chapter is the election of the general superior and her council as well as the establishment and modification of guidelines and norms in everyday community life.

Executive are the General Superior and her council.

The first general chapter took place in 1869 and Mother Rosa was elected almost unanimously as the first general superior. Her successor (1878–1905) was Agatha Simons, builder of the Marienhaus monastery in its present form in the 4th General Chapter.

Sister Edith-Maria Magar has been Superior General since 2012, succeeding Sister Basina Kloos , who was Superior General from 1988 to 1994 and again from 2000 to 2012.

Activity of the order

Since the founding days, the focus of the order's activity has been on nursing and social work according to their rule.

For this purpose the Marienhaus GmbH was founded in 1903 , in which the assets of the order were bound. Through a reorganization in 1994, a St. Elisabeth Kranken- und Pflege GmbH, operating company of a foundation, was interposed between this GmbH and the order. At the end of 2011, the Waldbreitbach Franciscan Sisters transferred their facilities to the Marienhaus Foundation. This foundation, which is based in Neuwied, was founded by the religious order in autumn 2011. The Marienhaus group of companies today maintains over 80 social institutions (hospitals, old people's homes, children's homes, hospices, educational institutions) in the federal states of North Rhine-Westphalia, Rhineland-Palatinate, Saarland and Hesse with over 13,800 employees. Two of these are located at the original founding site of the order on the Waldbreitbacher Kapellenberg.

Regardless, the spiritual activities of the Order are focused on the Motherhouse:

  • Retreats, retreats, prayer and reflection evenings for individuals and groups,
  • Breathing exercises, meditation and talk therapy,
  • Seminars on theological and social topics, orientation offers for school classes and accompanying seminars for members of the nursing professions,
  • Offers to live with the sisters in everyday life in the monastery with all tasks and prayer hours,
  • Seminars in the Bible garden , herb and theme garden , herb hikes,
  • Waldbreitbacher Impulse (2000–2007): Invitation to politicians and other prominent persons in public life to give a lecture on a current topic and to discuss it with the audience.

The Waldbreitbach Franciscan Sisters maintain a 15,000-book library open to the public, a bookstore and monastery shop, a garden center, a creative workshop (with a focus on making candles), a painting workshop and a restaurant with an outdoor terrace in summer. The group also includes an IT company HSP - healthcare solution provider , which is also represented on the external market with the product MARIS (mobile doctor and information system). This is a dictation and documentation system to optimize the analog and digital flow of information within the hospital.

Your organ of publication is the quarterly magazine “horizont”.

literature

  • Jakob Albert Backes: If the grain of wheat doesn't die (Jo 12, 24). Life picture of the Servant of God Mother Maria Rosa Flesch, founder of the Franciscan Sisters of the Most Blessed Virgin Mary of the Angels at St. Marienhaus, Waldbreitbach. 5th edition. Coelde, Werl 1967 (various reprints, most recently 2006)
  • Hans-Joachim Kracht : Rosa Flesch. Passion for people. Margaretha Rosa Flesch - Life and Work. Paulinus-Verlag, Trier 2005, ISBN 3-7902-0332-7 .
  • Maura Böckeler : The power of powerlessness. Mother Maria Rosa Flesch, donor d. Franciscan Sisters BMVA von Waldbreitbach. Matthias Grünewald Verlag, Mainz 1962 (reprint 2003).

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