At the age of sixteen, Jeanne began helping her family by working as a kitchen maid in a manor near Cancale. She stayed there until the age of twenty-five, when she left home to work as a nurse’s aide at Le Rosais Hospital in Saint Servan. When a young sailor asked her to marry him, she replied, ‘God wants me for himself. He is keeping me for a work which is not yet founded.’
Jeanne desired only to serve God and the poor – especially the weakest and the most destitute – faithful to the ideal of configuration to Jesus through Mary that Saint John Eudes had taught to the members of the Third Order of the Admirable Mother, an association that she joined around the age of twenty-five.
One winter’s evening in 1839, she opened her door and her heart to an elderly, semi-paralysed blind woman who had suddenly found herself alone. She gave up her own bed for her. This act committed her forever to the care of the elderly. A second elderly woman followed, then a third… By 1843, Jeanne and three young companions were caring for around forty elderly people. These young women had chosen her as Superior of their small association which would gradually develop into a true religious life.
Not long afterwards, however, Jeanne was ousted from this responsibility and reduced to the simple activity of collecting funds for the work by begging, a hard task which she herself had initiated, having as a child witnessed support being raised in this way for a needy widow. She had been encouraged in this act of charity and sharing by the Brothers of Saint John of God, from a nearby hospital in Dinan. Jeanne replied to injustice with silence, gentleness and abandonment. Her faith and love helped her to discern God’s will for her and for her religious family.As the years passed by, Jeanne was more and more shrouded in obscurity. The beginnings of her work were falsified, and she was kept in the background for twenty-seven years (1852–79), four at the Home in Rennes, and the last twenty-three years of her long life at La Tour Saint Joseph, the Motherhouse of the Congregation of the Little Sisters of the Poor since 1856.
She died on 29 August 1879, at the age of eighty-six. Few Little Sisters knew that she was the foundress of their order, but her influence on the young postulants and novices whose life she shared during those twenty-seven years proved to be decisive. During this prolonged contact, the initial charism and spirit was passed on.
Little by little, light was shed on the situation. In 1902, the truth began to emerge: Jeanne Jugan, Sister Mary of the Cross, who had died in oblivion a quarter of a century earlier, was not the third Little Sister, as everyone had been led to believe, but the first, the Foundress. Her cause was introduced in Rome in 1970, and she was beatified in 1982 and will be canonized on 11 October 2009.
The spirit of the Congregation is the evangelical spirit expressed by Jesus in the Beatitudes. Jeanne Jugan, faithful to the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, radiated particularly in her life gentleness and humility of heart, which enabled her to surrender herself, in simplicity, to the joy of hospitality. That is what the name Little Sister of the Poor expresses.For Jeanne Jugan, the poor defined her vocation. God had waited for her in the Poor; she had met and found him in the Poor.
Today, the Little Sisters of the Poor continue the work of Jeanne Jugan in offering welcome, comfort and care to the elderly God places on their path, whom they commit to accompany until the end of their lives. They accomplish this with great respect for life, for their families and for their convictions, working in collaboration with paid personnel, lay Members of the Association and volunteers. They do this in response to the call of Christ who consecrates them in his love through the vows of chastity, poverty, obedience and hospitality within international fraternal communities. The commitment of the Little Sisters is founded on and nourished by the spirit of the Beatitudes. They strive to live in humility, simplicity and unconditional confidence in the goodness of God, which is expressed, as it has been since the beginning, by fidelity to the collecting of support for their work. The Little Sisters maintain the tradition of relying on their communities for donations, often going out in their ‘begging van’ to collect them. The Congregation, which is missionary, sees in the expansion of its apostolate to the ends of the earth a grace of renewal and a source of vitality.
Facts about The Little Sisters of the Poor • 2,710 Little Sisters, including 60 novices |
‘Love God very much! He is so good! All for him.’
‘Do everything through love.’
‘Refuse God nothing. Accustom yourselves to doing everything for him.’
‘In our troubles, we must always say, ‘Blessed be God, thank you my God, or glory to God!”
‘When you grow old, you will no longer see anything... As for me, I no longer see anything but God!’
‘My children, you love Our Lady. She will be your Mother! Let us say a Hail Mary together! The Hail Mary will take us to heaven! All good comes to us from the Church. The Holy Father before all!’
‘Little, be very little before God … hidden by humility in all God wants from you, as being only the instruments of his work.’
‘My Jesus, I have only you.’
‘We have been grafted onto the cross.’
‘Jesus is waiting for you in the chapel. Go and find him when your strength and patience are giving out, when you feel lonely and helpless. Say to him: ‘You know well what is happening, my dear Jesus. I have only you. Come to my aid...’ And then go your way. And don‘t worry about knowing how you are going to manage. It is enough to have told our good Lord. He has an excellent memory!’
‘Be a beautiful rose of charity!’
‘Never forget that the Poor are Our Lord.’
‘When you will be with the poor, give yourselves wholeheartedly.’
‘When you will be in the Homes, be kind to the elderly, especially to the infirm… Love them very much!’
‘Look upon the poor with compassion, and Jesus will look upon you with kindness.’
‘You must always be cheerful. Our elderly do not like long faces.’
‘Knock, knock at the gate of heaven for souls.’
‘It is so beautiful to be poor, to have nothing, to depend on God for everything!’
‘Give, give us the house. If God fills it, he will not abandon it.’
‘If God is with us, it will be accomplished…‘
‘God has blessed me because I have always greatly thanked his Providence.’
‘Be very grateful for your vocation.’
‘God has given you a great grace in calling you to serve the poor.’
‘Refuse God nothing. Nothing is small in the religious life… You must do everything through love.’
‘Last words: ‘Eternal Father, open your gates today to the most miserable of your children, but one who greatly longs to see you. O Mary, my dear Mother, come to me. You know that I love you and that I long to see you.”
