Missionary Sisters of the Precious Blood

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Provincial office in the Neuenbeken district of Paderborn
Wernberg Monastery: Arcade courtyard detail

The Missionary Sisters of the Precious Blood ( Mariannhill Missionaries , congregatio pretiosi sanguinis , religious symbol : CPS ) is a Catholic women's orders , which in 1885 by the Austrian Trappistenabt Franz Pfanner in South Africa was founded. Today the community has around 1000 sisters in 97 branches, which are active in Africa, Austria, Germany, the Netherlands, Portugal and Romania.

founding

In 1882 Pfanner founded Mariannhill Monastery in South Africa. The native of Vorarlberg , who originally belonged to the Mariawald Trappist Abbey in the Eifel in Germany and later founded a monastery in Banja Luka in Bosnia , was asked by a mission bishop to set up an abbey of the order in Africa. Since the Trappists live strictly contemplative, active pastoral work in Mariannhill, which normally characterizes the missionary orders, was originally in the background. Abbot Pfanner soon noticed that the Trappist way of life was not doing justice to the local situation. He found himself challenged by requests and requests from people around him to offer them lessons, catechesis and technical training. His main concern was to promote all people in the same way, regardless of ethnicity, religion or gender, which was a thorn in the side of the British colonial government.

In 1885 Pfanner called German missionary helpers into the country for his work. This is the hour of birth of the Missionary Sisters of the Precious Blood, whose founding day is September 8, 1885. A year later, the Rhinelander Josephine Emunds (1865–1948), who came from Schleiden near Aachen, came to Mariannhill. As Sister Maria Paula, she decisively shaped the order in the following years. As a novice she took over the office of novice master.

In 1907 Sister Maria Paula Emunds became Superior General. She held this office for 25 years. Above all, she campaigned for the independence of the congregation from the Trappists in Mariannhill, a goal that she achieved in 1929.

history

The Order of the Missionary Sisters of the Precious Blood first spread to Africa after it was founded. In 1889 Sister Paula Emunds established the first European branch in the Netherlands because some European women who joined the congregation had no mission calling. Further branches in Africa were opened in 1898 in the Congo and in German East Africa , in 1908 in Kenya and in 1909 in Southern Rhodesia . In 1909 the congregation founded the first house in Germany, the Herz-Mariae-Kloster in Diefflen . The sisters have been in Denmark since 1916 and in the USA since 1925. In 1935 the congregation founded a branch in Austria in the renaissance castle Wernberg ( Carinthia ), in 1948 the sisters came to Papua New Guinea , 1951 to Canada, 1958 to Portugal and 1986 to South Korea . Since 1993 there have been Mariannhill Missionaries in the Banat in Romania and take on pastoral and social services there.

Superior General

activities

Mariannhill Mission Sisters are active in various areas: They work in the educational area (kindergarten, school, nursing schools, facilities for the disabled), in the social and charitable area (hospital, outpatient care, AIDS education, poor relief, self-help projects, care for refugees), in the home and the agricultural sector (gardening, agriculture, wafer baking), pastoral care (sacraments, marriage and family pastoral care, child and youth pastoral care, religious adult education, catechist training, spiritual accompaniment and solidarity in prayer with other people), missionary awareness-raising and artistic Area (art workshops for painting, mosaic, enamel and clay work, parament embroidery), e.g. B. the Lumko Art School by Josepha Selhorst in South Africa. In the Wernberg Monastery in Carinthia , the Sisters of the Precious Blood run an educational center and guest house.

See also

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Cooperative of the Missionary Sisters of the Precious Blood (ed.): 50 years of missionary work by the Missionary Sisters of the Precious Blood 1885–1935. Reimlingen in Bayern 1935, pp. 50-52, 57-58.
  2. ↑ Johann Spurk: The history of the "Herz-Mariä" monastery , in: Pfarrchronik St. Josef Diefflen 1900-1975, Saarlouis 1975, pp. 305-350.