Poor Franciscan Sisters of the Holy Family
The poor Franciscan Sisters of the Holy Family or Mallersdorf Sisters are a Roman Catholic women religious episcopal law. The Congregation was founded by the Blessed Paul Josef Nardini 1855.
History
Paul Josef Nardini took over the parish in the Diocese of Speyer Pirmasens on 7 May 1851. At that time the former garrison town had fallen economically in great distress after the dissolution of the military. The economic plight was exacerbated by poor harvests and uprisings. While the parents of homework lived and often were on the road as peddlers, many children were left unattended and uncared for and subsisted by begging. The Catholics who were far in the minority, a very experienced church hostile climate.
Nardini soon recognized the causes of the moral conditions in the economic situation and tried to get the support of the Pirmasenser citizens for the establishment of a branch of the low Bronner sisters. In 1853 there were two sisters from Alsace to Pirmasens. But the sisters had to return to her mother's house again as foreigners after only two years. To continue the laborious beginnings, pastor Nardini won in 1855 two women as Tertiaries belonged as Nardini itself the Third Order of Saint Francis. They were ready to take on the poor and the sick in the parish. The basis of her life she chose the Third Order Rule. The vow of personal poverty was particularly important to them to go out of love for the poor can. The new congregation put themselves under the protection of the Holy Family, because it was to them primarily a social and moral strengthening of families. So the sisters soon took a variety of charitable works in education, nursing and elderly care.
Even after two months, ten sisters and thirty children were able to move into their own house. Soon also the communities asked for sisters to act in their parishes. Speyer Bishop Nikolaus von Weis issued the Order in 1857 the recognition. The order spread, despite the early death of its founder (1862 ) quickly from. 1864 attracted some sisters at the request of Princess Monte Nuovo to Sibiu in Transylvania. In the Palatinate, in Bavaria and Transylvania to 1869, 64 branches were established. In 1960 there were already 367 branches. The parent company in Pirmasens soon became too small, so it was in 1869 transferred to the monastery Mallersdorf, a secularized Benedictine abbey in 1803. From this mother house of the Congregation also the today usual popular name " Mallersdorf sisters " derives.
The Congregation Today
The sisters run nurseries, boarding schools, kindergartens and schools Housekeeping. They work in hospitals, outpatient nursing and retirement homes. In Bad Wörishofen they operate a Kneipp spa.
The branches in Romania (former Transylvania) are now considered an independent province. Since 1955, the sisters also work in the Mission in South Africa. The sisters are there today primarily active in AIDS education and care of infected people.
In the Mother House of the Congregation in Mallersdorf live over 500 sisters. At the top of the Community Sr. M. Jakobi Schmid stands as Superior General.
In the parent company, the brewery of the monastery is located, which is headed by a sister as a brew master.