Our Foundress
The core Gospel values of love, prayer and service form the life of every Sister of Charity of St. Joan Antida. We draw guidance in living out our commitment as religious women from the life of St. Jeanne-Antide Thouret, our foundress. Jeanne-Antide's actions and writings are a rich legacy that models a life attentive to God, demonstrating love for all humanity, and letting oneself be imbued with the Spirit. Click here to see a timeline of St. Joan's life.
Her story is worth retelling. Born on November 27, 1765 in the Sancey-le-Long in the Doubs region in France, Jeanne-Antide Thouret was the fifth child of a family of eight. When she was just 15 years old, her mother died leaving the responsibility of maintaining the household to Jeanne-Antide.
As a young girl she searched for a way that would give meaning to her life and believed that it was important to respond to God's will for her. At 22 she left her home and joined the Daughters of Charity, a congregation at the service of the poor founded by St. Vincent de Paul in Paris. In 1793, when the French Revolution was at its height, all religious congregations were banned and Jeanne-Antide was forced to leave the Daughters of Charity. She returned to her home knowing that she would carry on what she had learned from St. Vincent de Paul. She cared for the sick, the wounded, and the poor - all of whom grew numerous during the chaos of the French Revolution. Jeanne-Antide also taught the children, helped the priests who were forced to hide, and gathered Christians in prayer. Because of her desire to commit herself to Christ and to her religious vocation, Jeanne-Antide fled France and escaped to Switzerland to join a different religious itinerant community where she cared for the sick. With them she traveled across Switzerland and Germany. When she decided to return to France she did so on foot, alone, without a passport, and through unknown places at the risk of her own life. She passed through Einsiedeln and reached the village of Landeron in Switzerland. It was there that representatives from the diocese of Besancon, also in exile, made a request of her to continue on to France and take in young girls who she should train in the same way she was trained. With these girls she was to return to Besancon, France to teach the children and to care for the sick. Jeanne-Antide accepted this request and in 1799 she opened a school, a clinic, and a soup kitchen for the poor in Besancon. She had founded a new congregation. In 1810 Jeanne-Antide was called to Naples, where she and a group of sisters were faced with working in a very hierarchical social system where the wealthy never encountered the poor. Jeanne-Antide was in charge of the Hospital of the Incurables, the largest hospital in the city. The sisters often visited the poor and sick in their homes.
In 1819, the Pope approved The Rule of Life, a book she used to organize her congregation and the life of the women who had followed her. In fact, The Rule of Life is still used today by The Sisters of Charity of St. Joan Antida.
Jeanne-Antide died in Naples in 1826. In 1934, Pope Pius IX declared Jeanne-Antide a Saint.
Print This Page
