ALL SAINTS CELEBRATED IN DECEMBER
Saints celebrated on the 14th of December
Prayer to the Angels and the Saints
Heavenly Father, in praising Your Angels and Saints we praise Your glory, for by honouring them we honour You, their Creator. Their splendour shows us Your greatness, which infinitely surpasses that of all creation.
In Your loving providence, You saw fit to send Your Angels to watch over us. Grant that we may always be under their protection and one day enjoy their company in heaven.
Heavenly Father, You are glorified in Your Saints, for their glory is the crowning of Your gifts. You provide an example for us by their lives on earth, You give us their friendship by our communion with them, You grant us strength and protection through their prayer for the Church, and You spur us on to victory over evil and the prize of eternal glory by this great company of witnesses.
Grant that we who aspire to take part in their joy may be filled with the Spirit that blessed their lives, so that, after sharing their faith on earth, we may also experience their peace in heaven. Amen.
BL. MARY FRANCES SCHERVIER, FOUNDRESS
The Sisters of the Poor of Saint Francis are a Congregation founded by the Venerable Mother Frances Schervier [Maria Franziska Schervier] at Aachen in the year 1845, whose members observe the Rule of the Third Order of St Francis, as given by Leo X for Tertiaries living in community, and Constitutions adapted to their special work, care of the sick poor, dependent upon charity.
Blessed Frances Schervier, born in Aachen, January 3, 1819, was the child of John Henry Caspar Schervier, proprietor of a needle manufactory and associate magistrate of the city, and Maria Louisa Migeon, descendant of a wealthy French family.
Frances’s education was thorough, and it was always her desire to serve the sick and poor. She began by giving them food and clothing, labouring for them, and visiting them in their homes and hospitals.
ACTIVE CHARITY
In 1840 she joined a charitable society, in order to exercise this charity more actively.
In 1844 she and four other young ladies (Catherine Daverkosen, Gertrude Frank, Joanna Bruchhans, and Catherine Lassen) became members of the Third Order of Saint Francis.
SHE WAS CHOSEN SUPERIOR OF THE COMMUNITY
The following year, with the permission of a priest, they went to live together in a small house beyond St James’s Gate, and Frances was chosen superior of the community. The life of the sisters was conventual, and the time spent in religious exercises, household duties, and caring for the sick poor. In 1848 the community numbered thirteen members.
In the latter part of 1848 a mild form of cholera broke out in Aachen, followed by an epidemic of small pox, and an infirmary was opened in an old Dominican building, the property of the city.
The Sisters offered their services as nurses and they were authorised to take up their abode in the building (1849).
NEW MEMBERS
New members were admitted in 1849, when they were called to take charge of an infirmary for cholera patients in Burscheid.
In 1850 they established a hospital for incurables in the old Dominican building, and the home nursing and charity kitchens in different parishes were entrusted to them.
In 1850 the "Constitutions" were compiled and submitted to the Archbishop of Cologne. They were approved, and on August 12, 1851, Mother Frances and her twenty-three associates were invested with the habit of St Francis.
EXPANSION
On June 13, 1850, they took charge of a hospital in Juelich (later abandoned). In 1851 a foundation was established at Bonn and also at Aachen for the care of the female prisoners in the House of Detention. When the home of the Poor Clares, before their suppression in 1803, was offered for sale in the summer of 1852, Mother Frances purchased the spacious building for a convent - the first mother-house. The congregation grew steadily and rapidly.
In 1852 two houses were founded in Cologne, and a hospital was opened at Burscheid. Foundations were established in Ratingen, Mayence, Koblenz (1854); Kaiserswerth, Krefeld, Euskirchen (1855); Eschweiler (1858); Stolberg and Erfurt (1863), etc.
THE CONGREGATION IN AMERICA
The year 1858 marks an important epoch in the development of the congregation, namely: the transplanting of the congregation to America. Mrs. Sarah Peter, a convert of Cincinnati, O., received a commission from the archbishop in that city to bring German Sisters to America to care for the destitute poor of German nationality, and Irish Sisters for the Irish poor.
While in Rome in 1857 she submitted the plan to the Holy Father, who advised her to apply for German Sisters to some Austrian bishop. Cardinal Von Geissel, the Archbishop of Cologne, earnestly recommended the Congregation of Mother Frances for the purpose. In Ireland she succeeded in obtaining the Sisters of Mercy.
SIX SISTERS SET SAIL FOR AMERICA
Mother Frances resolved to found a house in Cincinnati, and on August 24, 1858, the six sisters chosen by her set sail for America.
Upon their arrival in Cincinnati, the Sisters of the Good Shepherd kindly gave them hospitality. Soon they received the offer of the gratuitous use of a vacated orphanage for their patients. The following year three more sisters arrived from Europe, and in March they purchased several lots at the corner of Linn and Betts Streets (the present site of St Mary’s Hospital), and began constructing a hospital.
MORE SISTERS ARRIVED
More sisters soon arrived from the mother-house, and in 1860 they were able to establish a branch-house in Covington.
In the spring of 1861 Mrs Peter offered her residence to the sisters for a novitiate, and home for the Clarisses or recluses, a contemplative branch of the congregation, for whose coming she had long been negotiating with Mother Frances.
In October, 1861, three recluses came to America, and from their arrival up to the present time perpetual adoration of the Most Blessed Sacrament has been carried on without interruption in this novitiate convent of St Clara.
(Excerpts from Catholic Encyclopedia, 1913)
[Bl. Mary Frances Schervier died on December 14, 1876 in Aachen. She was beatified on 28 April 1974 by Pope Paul VI.)
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