Skip to main content
Yesterday I shared a little about the Motherhouse of the Sisters of St. Joseph of St. Augustine, Florida. You can learn more about our congregation by visiting our webpage at www.ssjfl.org.
We have served the Church in Florida since we arrived in 1866 at Picolata Landing on the St. John's River. Last year we celebrated our 150th anniversary of that landing on September 2, 1866. We came to St. Augustine from France at the invitation of Bisop Augustin Verot, the first bishop of St, Augustine, to educate the newly freed slaves and their children following the Civil War.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

October 2018 Do you like to look at old photos? Most of us do, even though the quality of the photos may have faded over time. Here I am at about age 11 or 12 standing with my Mother and my sister Barbara's mother-in-law, Mrs. Leila Ponce, in Mrs. Ponce's front yard in north Jacksonville. My Mother, Grace Stovall, is holding my first nephew and her first grandson, Patrick Ponce, in her arms following his baptism, I believe. This was around 1960 or 1961. See the old cars behind us? My nephew had to find a copy of his baptismal certificate recently because he plans to get married in April in a Catholic church up in North Carolina. He was baptized in our home parish, Holy Rosary, in Jacksonville. At this time I was a student at Holy Rosary School. My parents allowed me to go there after it opened, which for me was when I was entering fourth grade. My first teacher in Catholic school was Sister Philip Neri, an Irish Sister of St. Joseph who died tragically in an automobile cr...
2 comments
Read more
 Pandemic and Presence  The Catholic Health Association graphic of a woman wearing a mask (above) to demonstrate her love of her neighbors during the Covid-19 pandemic is one of the best visuals I have to symbolize what self-sacrificing love looks like right now in our world. I do not know one person who enjoys wearing a mask, especially here in Florida with our heat and humidity.  Another way to demonstrate self-sacrificing love now is staying home and avoiding risky behaviors such as optional traveling and being in crowded groups of people where others may not be wearing masks and social distancing is difficult.  As Sisters of St. Joseph who have been seized by God's love, we work in collaboration with others to bring union and reconciliation to our world "that  all may be one." (John 17;21) Looking back at all the tragic events of 2020 and even recently in our own country, the need for this mission and charism of healing and reconciliation and unity is greate...
Post a Comment
Read more
  Why Joseph? Statue of St. Joseph and Child Jesus in front foyer of Motherhouse. During this Year of St. Joseph in the Diocese of St. Augustine, I thought a blog entry on how the Sisters of St. Joseph received their name would be fitting . S ince October 15, 1650, is recognized as the official founding of the Sisters of St. Joseph in Le Puy-en-Velay, France, I decided to post this on October 15, 2020, 370 years later.   In researching this topic, I found a page on the Philadelphia (Chesnut Hill) Sisters of St. Joseph website that was written by Sister Dolores Clerico, SSJ, one of their members who is familiar to our Congregation since she has spoken at our Assemblies, and even led a Congregational retreat one summer at Marywood.  According to Sister Dolores, St. Joseph was in the shadows before the 16th century. St. Teresa of Avila, the discalced Carmelites, the Jesuits and Franciscans and many newly-formed confraternities of Catholic laity in Europe began to promote dev...
Post a Comment
Read more