Precious Blood Sisters begin 175th anniversary year |
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Saturday, 17 January 2009 01:00 |
DAYTON—This year the Dayton, Ohio-based Sisters of the Precious Blood celebrate the 175th anniversary of the founding of their congregation.
They have proclaimed Jan. 15, 2009, through Jan. 15, 2010, as a year of jubilee, and are marking this milestone anniversary with a full calendar of events. Highlights of the 175th anniversary year include a four-part lecture series on Precious Blood spirituality; an open house at the congregation’s motherhouse, Salem Heights, Dayton, April 26; and a Mass of Thanksgiving celebrated by Archbishop Daniel Pilarczyk of Cincinnati at Precious Blood Church, Dayton, Oct. 4.
Additional anniversary events are being planned for the Maria Stein, Ohio, area and in other dioceses and states where Precious Blood Sisters serve. The congregation presently has eight sisters serving in the Diocese of Toledo.
The Sisters of the Precious Blood was founded in 1834 in Switzerland by Mother Maria Anna Brunner, a widow, mother and grandmother. Filled with a yearning to do more for God, she made a pilgrimage to Rome. There she was introduced to the spirituality of the Precious Blood of Jesus through the preaching of St. Gaspar del Bufalo. She returned home eager to make this devotion the center of her life and to make it known to others.
Back in Switzerland, Maria Anna spent her nights and days in prayer, cared for the needs of the young men in the seminary, taught orphan girls in her home, and provided food for the area’s poor. Her passionate love for God became contagious and soon other women joined her in her life of prayer and good works. This little group became the nucleus of the Sisters of the Precious Blood.
The first Sisters of the Precious Blood arrived in Ohio pioneer territory from their native Switzerland in the spring of 1844. Bishop John Baptist Purcell of Cincinnati visited them within a week of their arrival, presenting the great needs of the local church. On Christmas Eve of that year, the sisters moved into a log convent in New Riegel. There they began their treasured practice of eucharistic adoration and began to minister to the needs of the growing population of German immigrants.
The congregation’s motherhouse has been located in the Cincinnati Archdiocese since the earliest days, first in Maria Stein (1846) and, since 1923, in Dayton. From here, hundreds of Precious Blood Sisters have reached out to serve the needs of God’s people in education, pastoral ministry and health care, and in a wide range of ministries across the United States.
Today, Sisters of the Precious Blood serve throughout Ohio and in Arizona, California, Colorado, Indiana, Kentucky and Michigan, and internationally in Chile and Guatemala, striving to be “a life-giving, reconciling presence in our fractured world.”
The first program in the lecture series is Jan. 17, at the sisters’ motherhouse. The presenter is Precious Blood Sister Joyce Ann Zimmerman, director of the Institute for Liturgical Ministry in Dayton and an adjunct professor of liturgy at the Athenaeum of Ohio. Her topic is “A Theology of Eucharist and Adoration: Perspectives on Precious Blood Spirituality.”
Future lectures and presenters are:
• June 29: Mercy Sister Marie Chin, “Living the Vowed, Consecrated Life in the 21st Century”
• Oct. 3: Precious Blood Father Barry Fischer: “Precious Blood Spirituality: Wellspring of Our Call to Mission”
• Jan. 16, 2010, Sister Dianne Bergant, a Sister of St. Agnes: “Precious Blood Spirituality from the Old Testament Perspective.
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For updates on 175th anniversary events, visit www.PreciousBloodSistersDayton.org.
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Last Updated on Tuesday, 03 March 2009 13:39 |
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