Throughout our history, we have been the face, hands, feet, and presence of Jesus to those who are sick, forgotten, and lacking resources. Since our founding as a Roman Catholic congregation of women religious, the Franciscan Sisters of Mary (FSM) have faithfully served where there was a need. Shortly after arriving at the St. Louis riverfront on November 16, 1872, our foundress, Mother Mary Odilia Berger and her five companions walked from house-to-house nursing those who were sick.
SSM Health
This humble beginning led to the founding and sponsorship of SSM Health, which provides hospitals and healthcare agencies across four midwestern states. Include link to SSM Health here.
FSM, known for quality healthcare, education, and research, had sisters in ministry in Africa and South America for decades. Other former FSM-sponsored ministries include:
Holy Family Services Birthing Center
In 1983, Sr. Angela Murdaugh, FSM, along with Sr. Damien Francois, FSM, and two other women religious, founded a birthing center in Weslaco, TX, on the Texas/Mexico border. Sr. Angela, a Certified Nurse-Midwife, was in ministry at a community clinic in the Rio Grande Valley, when she found that more than 1,000 pregnant women in Hidalgo County lacked prenatal care. Thus, Holy Family Services was born.
www.holyfamilybirthcenter.com
Almost Home
Srs. Jacinta Elmendorf, FSM, and Irene Ratke, FSM, were concerned that many St. Louis-area teenage mothers were facing homelessness. Their efforts to address this problem resulted in the founding of Almost Home in 1993.
Woman’s Place
Srs. Irma Kennebeck, FSM, and Jeanne Meurer, FSM, founded Woman’s Place in 1998 as a drop-in center of hospitality for women experiencing domestic and/or sexual abuse. Through their welcoming, listening, compassionate, and loving presence, Irma and Jeanne helped empower these women to make the choices needed for their well-being and that of their children. In 2014, the concept of Woman’s Place merged with the YWCA.
Always In Ministry
As followers of St. Francis of Assisi, we care passionately about God’s creation. Our hearts cry out for our sisters and brothers who are deprived of human dignity because of poverty, injustice, ignorance, and destruction of our common home.
Discerning and responding to God’s call has been and continues to be our way of life. We are committed to thoughtful advocacy in areas such as compassionate care of creation, women and children, nonviolence.
Individually and collectively, we are aware of the power of focusing our intention through prayer. We remain on the journey which began over 150 years ago with a handful of God-seekers. We are a continuation of that journey and we hold ourselves in readiness for the ways the Spirit chooses to reveal God’s presence in and through each of us. We rely on God’s grace at every moment as we “continue courageously” into the future.