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Sisters of the Holy Family of Nazareth


From November 8-10, 2024, the Sisters of the Holy Family of Nazareth will host a group of 26 pilgrims including the new provincial leadership team, fourteen lay leaders, and pilgrimage staff. They will have a Mass at St. Josaphat on Saturday, November 9th at 10:30am.

Brief Historical Notes on the Sisters of the Holy Family of Nazareth and their connection to St. Josaphat Parish

The Congregation of the Sisters of the Holy Family of Nazareth was founded in Rome in 1875 by Blessed Mary of Jesus the Good Shepherd (Frances Siedliska), a Polish noblewoman born on November 12, 1845.  From the time of her First Holy Communion, she desired to dedicate her life to Christ as a religious.  Her father, in particular, was adamantly opposed to the idea, so it was not until after his death that she was able to realize her dream.  
 
In the spring of 1875, along with a few other companions, her mother among them, Mother Mary began a new religious Congregation in Rome.  The inspiration and model for the community was the Holy Family of Nazareth. Mother Mary was fascinated by the reality of their very simple, ordinary lives lived in profound union with the Lord, especially during the thirty ‘hidden years’ before Jesus’ ‘public life.’ She articulated this inspiration as follows: “The purpose for which this Congregation exists is to cooperate with Christ and His Church in spreading the Kingdom of God’s love which…first blossomed miraculously in the Holy Family.   [It is] to be cultivated and spread within the community and among others, particularly within Christian families.” Our mission to families, then, is the paramount focus of the many varied ministries in which our Sisters are engaged. 
 
By 1881, Mother Mary had established a small home and the beginnings of a ministry in Cracow, Poland.  In 1885, unexpectedly, she was invited by the pastor of St. Stanislaus Kostka Parish, Father Vincent Barzynski, CR, to bring Sisters to Chicago to teach and care for the children of the throngs of Polish immigrants who were flooding American cities in the mid-late 1800s. In an effort to help preserve the faith of these immigrant groups, in 1883, at the Third Plenary Council of Baltimore, the American Catholic Bishops mandated that every parish was to establish a Catholic School where, in their own language, the children of the immigrants could be educated in the faith. To fulfill that mandate, Father Barzynski invited Mother Mary to undertake this work. It is a coincidence of Divine Providence that Mother Mary and eleven sisters – one half of the Congregation at the time - arrived in New York Harbor on July 4, 1885. That same evening, they boarded a train and arrived in Chicago on July 6th. Our first mission was at St. Josaphat’s Parish where the Sisters staffed the parish school and a small orphanage.
 
Since St. Josapahat Parish was the ‘birthplace’ of our Congregation in America, it has always been ‘sacred ground’ for the Sisters of the Holy Family of Nazareth. 

By September, 1885, Mother Mary had also opened a school at St. Adalbert Parish on 18th Street between Ashland and Damen.  Before her return to Europe three months later, Mother Mary purchased a home on Division Street to serve as the central house of the Congregation in the USA.  She then returned to Rome and made several more visits to the USA where she became a naturalized American citizen in 1897.

Our Sisters ministered at St. Josaphat for 108 years, from 1885 to 1993 when circumstances made it necessary to withdraw.  
 
Our international Congregation currently has about 1093 members serving in 14 countries: Australia, Belarus, England, France, Ghana, Israel, Italy, Kazakhstan, the Philippines, Poland, Russia, Spain, Ukraine, and the United States. In America, over the years, we have ministered in 20 states plus Puerto Rico. Currently, our Sisters minister in Illinois, Connecticut, New York, Texas, and Pennsylvania,
For many years, the dominant ministries of our Sisters were in education, health care, and child care services, with special concern for families and their needs. Today, the Sisters minister in a wider variety of services.

For more information about our Foundress and Congregation, please visit our website: www.nazarethcsfn.org\

American Pilgrimage: “Walking in the Footsteps of Mother Mary in America”

Like many other Congregations, the number of Sisters in our community is diminishing.  Also, due to the aging of our members over the years, we have steadily begun to entrust the leadership of our sponsored ministries to dedicated laity.  We have been very intentional in providing a formation program for these lay leaders, focusing on Catholic identity and our Congregation’s history, charism, spirituality, and mission. We do this so that they can exercise their leadership in the ministries we continue to sponsor in ways that are consistent with our core values and tradition.

One of the key features of this spiritual formation is a pilgrimage which we offer each year to sites which are significant in our history. Here in Chicago that includes:  St. Josaphat Church, Saints Mary and Elizabeth Hospital (founded by our Congregation in 1894), St. Stanislaus Kostka Parish, (which was the hub of the Polish immigration at the time), the site of the former Holy Family Academy (formally established in 1887 and in existence for more than 100 years), Holy Trinity Parish, St. Hedwig Parish, and St. Adalbert Cemetery where two of the pioneer Sisters and Father Anthony Lechert, (our Congregation’s long-time spiritual director) are buried.