Our Founders
Saint Arnold Janssen, SVD
1837—1909
Arnold Janssen was born on November 5, 1837, in Goch, a small city in the lower Rhineland of Germany. The second of ten children, he was raised by devout Catholic parents. The family’s prayer, which would come to guide Arnold in his life’s work, included a nightly rosary followed by the Prologue of St. John’s Gospel: In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and the Word was God.
As a young man, Arnold studied natural sciences at Bonn University and qualified to teach high school. He went on to study theology and was ordained a priest for the diocese of Münster in 1861. He taught mathematics and natural sciences in a secondary school at Bocholt, where he was known as strict but fair teacher.
In 1873, he resigned from his teaching post and founded a monthly magazine, The Little Messenger of the Sacred Heart, in order to get people to pray for the missions. He also intended the magazine to be a means of recruiting more German men and women for the missionary work of the Church. In the June issue of the first year of publication, he wrote: We turn to priests and seminarians who are shortly to be ordained. Is there no one among them in the whole of Germany who feels called to dedicate their life to the missionary cause? What about German priests coming together at a safe place to build a German mission seminary? The “Kulturkampf” of the German
Chancellor Otto Bismarck was raging with its anti-Catholic laws, and priests were being expelled from the country while the bishops were being imprisoned. Many people considered that the times were not right for the founding of a seminary, but Fr. Arnold was not deterred. The bishop of Roermond said of him, He’s either a fool or a saint!
Fr. Arnold founded his mission seminary across the border in Steyl, Holland on September 8, 1875. The hand of God was with him and the new order began to flourish in contrast to all expectations. The academic year of 1876/77 began with 15 candidates in four classes, and in March of 1879 the first two missionaries set out for China. On December 8, 1889, Fr. Arnold founded the Missionary Sister Servants of the Holy Spirit, who sent their first missionaries to Argentina in 1895.
A man of deep prayer himself, from the beginning Fr. Arnold desired that there should be constant prayer before the Blessed Sacrament to bring about the success of the missionaries. The Sister Servants of the Holy Spirit of Perpetual Adoration were founded on December 8, 1896. In his sermon, the Founder said: The cloistered Sisters should sit at the feet of the Lord like Mary, glorify him day and night through the Divine Office, and hold perpetual adoration before the Blessed Sacrament. In this way they will call down rich graces on the Church and the Congregation.
Fr. Arnold guided the mission entrusted to him faithfully for 34 years. At his death on January 15, 1909, he had about 1,800 spiritual children in his three Congregations. The spiritual heritage we have received from him is firmly anchored in the mystery of the Trinity. He saw the Word as coming from the Father, coming in the power of the Holy Spirit, to share the human condition and open our history to its destiny through his death and resurrection. He was devoted to the Sacred Heart of Jesus because he saw it as the expression of the love of Christ for the Father and for us, as it glows with zeal for the honor of the Father and for the salvation of souls. The veneration of the Holy Spirit flowed from his love of the Trinity. Fr. Arnold gave as a special common goal to both branches of Sisters the injunction to love, adore, and glorify the Holy Spirit as the Father of Love and Giver of Graces. He gave the Adoration Sisters a rose-colored habit as a reminder of the love of the Holy Spirit.
Arnold Janssen was beatified by Pope Paul VI in 1975 and canonized a saint in the Roman Catholic Church in 2003 by Pope John Paul II. Today there are about 6,000 Divine Word Missionaries active in 79 countries, about 3,800 Holy Spirit Missionary Sisters, and about 300 Holy Spirit Adoration Sisters.
“May the holy and triune God lead you more and more into the basic mystery of his divine love.”
St. Arnold Janssen
Mother Mary Michael
1862—1934
Adolfine Tönnies was born on January 7, 1862 in Horst-Emscher (Westphalia, Germany). She was the third of eleven children. Deep faith and love for the poor characterized her mother Matylda. Her father Johann owned an iron shop and was respected especially for his honesty in business. Adolfine went to a teacher’s training college in Münster and at age 19 became a teacher in a one-room mission school in Rendsburg, where she worked with great dedication for ten years.
Adolfine had often thought about joining a religious congregation, but did not want to abandon her school. When she asked her uncle, Fr. Hermann Wegener, SVD for advice, he directed her the new congregation of Missionary Sisters that Fr. Arnold Janssen, SVD had founded. On April 4, 1891 she gave her last lesson in Rendsburg and on May 1 moved to Steyl. Adolfine became one of the first 16 postulants in the new religious order. She gladly put up with the poverty of the house and later stated: “I believe I have never laughed so much as in the first year of my religious life.” Like the other Sisters she did the simplest house chores. She also played the harmonium for the community and lead the singing.
When Adolfine became a novice on January 17, 1892, she received the name Michael. Sr. Michael made her first profession of vows with the first group of Mission Sisters on March 12, 1894. In 1895 she was among the first Sisters appointed for Togo, West Africa, but before she could leave the appointment was revoked. In the fall of 1896, Sr. Michael applied for the cloistered section
that was about to be established and was accepted. On December 8, she received the habit of the cloistered Sisters and the name Mary Michael. She was a novice again.
During her first year as a cloistered Sister, Sr. Mary Michael was novice directress. On December 8, 1897, Fr. Arnold appointed her superior of the community. As superior, she promoted the interior and exterior growth of the Congregation and counseled the Sisters to “do ordinary things extraordinarily well. Our salvation and sanctification consist in fidelity in little things.” Later, she would be elected superior general of the Congregation, an office she exercised until her death.
Mother Mary Michael and three other Sisters made their first temporary vows as Cloistered Sisters on December 8, 1899. On August 15, 1907 the first perpetual profession took place: Mother Mary Michael, Sr. Mary Gertrudis, and Sr. Mary Theresia vowed themselves forever to their Bridegroom at a ceremony presided over by the Founder Fr. Arnold. Mother Mary Michael had spent eight months as a postulant, two years as a novice, and two years as a professed member of the Missionary Sisters. Then she started climbing the religious ladder again: three years a novice and seven years in temporary vows before making her perpetual profession as a Holy Spirit Adoration Sister.
For Mother Mary Michael, faithfulness to the spirit of the Founder was “the most precious inheritance and greatest concern.” In an address to the Sisters, she said: “Whoever is faithful to the principles of our Congregation, our holy rule, and our customs, she has the right goal in view and has everything to become holy.” Mother Mary Michael was characterized not only by a great desire to glorify God and to love Jesus in the Eucharist, but also a great missionary zeal. Hence with genuine joy she accepted invitations to open new houses of Eucharistic adoration. By her own example, she taught the Sisters humility, obedience, and cheerfulness. Even in her old age, she was known for the joy she exuded.
At the end of 1933, Mother Mary Michael started to feel weak and tired. The doctor examined her on January 25 and diagnosed a serious liver disorder. She died on February 25, 1934 at the end of the High Mass that had been offered for her. It was the second Sunday of Lent and the gospel of the day was on the Transfiguration of Christ. Her last words were: “Jesus, Mary…”