St. Joseph's Academy

Heritage Trip 2006 - A CSJ Pilgrimage

In June seventeen members of the Fontbonne and St. Joe communities traveled to France and Italy on a journey to the sacred places of the Sisters of St. Joseph - Lyon, LePuy and Rome – the living, holy cities of our founders, the first Sisters and our Church. In Lyon, we visited the places where Mother St. John Fontbonne lived and now rests for eternity. It was from Lyon that Mother commissioned six sisters, to travel to the New World. In 1836 their courageous journey ended in Carondelet, Missouri and began the foundation of the Congregation of the Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet.

Mother St. John Fontbonne never saw her dedicated, young Sisters again, but her daughters have flourished for generations building schools and hospitals across the United States and internationally. For the twelve CSJs that made this summer Heritage Trip, they were coming home to their spiritual roots. For those of us who shared the experience, including SJA alumnae Judith Lundin ’64 and Pam Miller ’66 , we witnessed the living spirit of the original Sisters of St. Joseph. We visited LePuy, the village where the first sisters began their ministry in 1650.

These were working women, lace makers, who lived in community and moved about the city caring for widows, pilgrims and the young who were homeless and without money. They were not cloistered. They possessed a trade and self-determination. They empowered the poor women of LePuy to work with dignity, and they spirited those in need with sustenance and teaching – offering food, and skills, God’s love and hope.

We walked on the very kitchen floor and touched the hearthstone where these first sisters cooked food for the poor and shared the state of their heart and home.

We visited the International Center in LePuy which serves the worldwide community of Sisters of St. Joseph – women from South America, Europe, Asia, Canada and Africa as well as our own CSJs throughout the USA.

In Rome, we visited the most sacred of sites in our faith. We stood at the grave of St. Peter, gazed in wonder at the Sistine Chapel and prayed with thousands in the Vatican. We were tourists and pilgrims, enjoying gleaming Paris, the art of Florence and the holy story of our CSJ tradition and our Catholic faith.

[This account of their journey was provided by Michaela Zahner, CSJ, President of St. Joseph's Academy.]