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Our Family Traits

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SIMPLICITY colors our interpersonal relationships and our lifestyle. It allows us to have a taste for the wisdom of ordinary people. In our spiritual life, this translates into searching for the Face of God in daily reality even though this may be very disturbing at times. In Mother Saint Joseph’s way, we want to be natural and authentic at all times.

A simple and authentic JOY radiates through our community life and our gatherings. It is the result of the gift of our lives to God and to others. It is made up of peace, unconditional love, and serenity.

Our great availability to each and everyone is characteristic of the SERVICE we offer to youth, to families, and to persons in need. Our apostolic life thus manifests a God who is close to His people.

HUMILITY, this virtue, the sister of simplicity, makes us prefer closeness with simple people and allows us to develop solidarity with them in our commitments. It leads us to pay special attention to the humble. As it did for Joseph, humility teaches us to choose God’s project in preference to our own.

Note that the first letter of each of our family traits corresponds with a letter in our acronym: SJSH (Sisters of Saint Joseph of Saint Hyacinthe; but also: Simplicity, Joy, Service, and Humility).


Our spirituality - Spirituality of the Incarnation

As Sisters of Saint Joseph, we live the spirituality of the Incarnation, as Joseph did, and according to the spirit of Elisabeth Bergeron.

Wherever we are, as persons and as a group, we want to manifest:
A GOD WHO IS CLOSE
  • A God who immersed himself passionately into the very depths of our humanity in order to become one of us.
  • A God who entered totally into the ordinary reality of life and walked with his people.
  • A God who allows himself to be discovered in the simplicity of faith and in the contemplation of the Word.
  • A God who allows himself to be touched in his Eucharist and in service to others.
  • A God who can be encountered in a privileged way in abandoned youth, in women, and in victims of social injustice.
  • A God we can perceive wherever human freedom and dignity are being promoted.

    Wherever we are, as persons and as a group, we want to be:
    WOMEN WHO ARE CLOSE
  • Simple women, close to the people among whom we live, available according to their needs, in solidarity with outcasts in their search for dignity and justice.
  • Women whose educational activity reaches children, youth, and families following Joseph's example, in the culture of today.
  • Women who walk in Joseph's footsteps and are committed to seeking the will of God constantly in inner callings and in daily events.
  • Women who are courageous because they have confidence in «The One who can do all things».
  • Women whose family traits: simplicity, joy, service, and humility, resemble those of the Holy Family of Nazareth.
  • Women who manifest God’s closeness through their community life, which provides joy, sharing, and support.

    Wherever we are, as persons and as a group, we want to live our spiritual life:
    AS JOSEPH DID
    As Sisters of Saint Joseph, we try to read the Gospel with the eyes of Joseph, the man who, by taking into his home Mary, his fiancée, chose to enter into God's project of Incarnation and to consecrate his life to it. From the very beginning of our Congregation, Bishop Moreau explicitly asked us to “walk in the footsteps of Saint Joseph” and to “live above all according to the will of the heavenly Father”. Elisabeth Bergeron's life continues to be our greatest source of inspiration.

    Walking in Joseph's footsteps means...
    When we read about Joseph's attitudes and actions in the Gospel, we are continually amazed by the depth of their spiritual dimension and by their appropriateness for the world of today.

    Walking in Joseph’s footsteps means...
  • Allowing Jesus to take all the room in our lives.
  • Making decisions based on faith, and allowing the Lord to intervene in our lives as he wishes. (Mt 1, 24-25).
  • Welcoming Mary, who is pregnant with Jesus, into our homes.
  • Seeking, with Mary, an appropriate place for the birth of Jesus and welcoming the consequences and the poverty of his birth (Lk 2, 4-7 and 27).
  • Being attentive to the Lord who comes and speaks to us through the people he chooses for this purpose.
  • Accepting to leave, in faith, when he gives us a sign (Mt 2, 13-15 and 19-23).
  • Earning one’s life through one’s work as in Nazareth.
  • With Mary, seeking Jesus when his presence is less clear to us (Lk 2, 41-50).
  • Accepting to live a humble and discreet life.
  • Educating joyfully (Lk 2, 39-40).
  • Collaborating, with God, in the development of others, especially the young and the humble.
  • In short, it means being constantly attentive to the Lord in order to conform to His will.