Anne-marie javouhey (1776-1851)
Home / Historical Figures / Anne-marie javouhey (1776-1851)
She believed that all people are equal and have a right to human and spiritual formation. Her philosophy in cultural integration was also progressive for the early 19th century: "We will keep to all that can be kept of the simple customs which suit the climate, we will change only what is not good."
Javouhey, Anne Marie (A)
All articles created or submitted in the first twenty years of the project, from 1995 to 2015.
1779-1851
Catholic Church
Senegal
St.
Javouhey was the pioneer in this missionary movement at a critical juncture.
Javouhey was the daughter of a peasant family that hid priests who had refused to take the anticlerical oath of allegiance to the French Revolution. The first went in 1825, and by 1840 three Senegalese priests had been ordained.
Javouhey then founded a seminary in Senegal and established an interracial religious order, which was open to both French and African candidates.
Javouhey arrived in 1822 and discovered a struggling and demoralized church.
These events occurred just before an explosive revitalization of religious orders, however, which resulted in a new missionary era that would parallel, and in many ways be part of, Western colonial expansion. When she returned to France, her attention shifted to the mentally ill, who were at that time neglected by the medical profession, and she created the precursor to occupational therapy.
Foundress : Blessed Anne Marie Javouhey is Foundress of the Congregation of the Sisters of St.
Joseph of Cluny. At first the seminary prospered, and by 1833 there were six priests and nine seminarians, along with a group preparing to be religious brothers. The French Government, after unsuccessful attempts at colonizing the rich interior of this country, appealed to the foundress of the Sisters of the St. Joseph, who were already established there.
Some of the places where the sisters have established are New Delhi, Puducherry, Tamil Nadu, West Bengal, Karnataka, Goa, Kerala, Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Sikkim and Madhya Pradesh.
Sisters of St. Joseph of Cluny today :Today, the Sisters of St. Joseph of Cluny number around 3000, and belong to some 70 different nationalities and are serving in more than 50 countries.
The suppression of the Jesuits from 1773 to 1814, the ravages of the French Revolution, and the Napoleonic wars left the missions in a state of almost total collapse. Due to her interventions, they regrouped and went on to become a major instrument in African Catholic missions.
Javouhey was also involved in the antislavery movement, and in 1828 she set sail for French Guiana, the site of her most remarkable achievement: a self-supporting colony of freed salves.
Not long after she turned 20, Anne Marie chose to become a nun, but for her it was not an easy process. More than a third are Indian and almost one-fifth are African or Malgache.
Vision on Education:
"I have promised God to give myself wholly to the service of the sick and the instruction of little children," Anne Marie wrote in one of her letters to her father.
Venerable Anne-Marie Javouhey
VENERABLE ANNE-MARIE JAVOUHEY
Foundress of the Sisters of St. Joseph of Cluny, born at Chamblanc, Diocese of Dijon, 11 November, 1779; died 15 July, 1851. Her most enduring effort was the direction she gave to a struggling new community, the Holy Spirit Fathers.
On her return to France, in 1843, Mother Javouhey found fresh trials awaiting her, including, ecclesiastical opposition. After a tuberculosis epidemic, the project collapsed. She was largely responsible for emancipation in that colony.