Visiting the SSJ Welcome Center in Philadelphia.
Mount Expands Mission-Based Exchange Program with School in Le Puy, France What began a few years ago as a French language exchange program has evolved to embrace the roots of the SSJ mission In 2015, Sister Kathleen Brabson, SSJ, then-President of the Mount, met with then-French teacher Carole Deshagette, who wanted to start a French language exchange program for her students. Inspired by the Sisters of Saint Joseph’s mission and the Order’s roots, S. Kathleen reached out to contacts in Le Puy, France, where the Order was founded. The SSJs trace their origins and spirit to six women, who came together in 1650 in warravaged LePuy in southern France, with great desire for union with God, themselves, and the dear neighbor. S. Kathleen connected with Ensemble Scolaire Saint Jacques de Compostelle, a high school in Le Puy. She was put in touch with Martine Wendzinski, a French literature teacher at the school. Shortly after, S. Kathleen and Martine developed a pilot exchange program that was exclusively for French language students. Each year, students from both schools would alternate traveling between the U.S. and France. Students would be immersed spiritually and culturally, staying with local host families from the respective schools.
S. Kathleen and Martine expressed a strong desire to shift the focus to a mission-based exchange program for all students, and they began planning to do so in 2017. Prior to her death, S. Kathleen had been collaborating with Martine to spearhead the program, working with the French school’s campus minister and colleagues to develop and finalize plans to fully integrate tenets of the SSJ mission into the trip. After S. Kathleen’s death, Martine continued planning the program’s expansion to give students the experience of walking in the footsteps of the founding Sisters of Saint Joseph. Additions to the program now include traveling to the French city of Lyon (site of the grave of Jeanne Fontbonne/Mother St. John Fontbonne, who founded the congregation after the French Revolution); visiting the humble kitchen, where the founding members of the SSJs gathered each evening around the hearth to share stories of the people they encountered that day and prayerfully accompanyed one another; and additional SSJ-related locations.
Students at the Chestnut Hill SSJ Motherhouse Chapel, where they attended a live reenactment of the Stations of the Cross.
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Summer 2019
