St. Arnold Janssen PDF

DIAGNOSTIC 1. WHAT IS SVD? 2. WHO FOUNDED THE SVD? 3. When was the SVD founded? 4. Foundation day of the SVD 5. Number of Congregations Arnold Janssen founded. 6. Devotion that he got from his Father. 7. Devotion that he got from his Mother. ST. ARNOLD JANSSEN PROPHETIC DIALOGUE -...

DIAGNOSTIC 1. WHAT IS SVD? 2. WHO FOUNDED THE SVD? 3. When was the SVD founded? 4. Foundation day of the SVD 5. Number of Congregations Arnold Janssen founded. 6. Devotion that he got from his Father. 7. Devotion that he got from his Mother. ST. ARNOLD JANSSEN PROPHETIC DIALOGUE -underlying ethos or spirituality of Christian mission. -was introduced during the SVD 10th General Chapter -from which flows a “dimensional” understanding of holistic mission. PROPHETIC DIALOGUE DIALOGUE WITH WORLD PEOPLE CULTURE RELIGIONS with humility THE FOUNDER (St. Arnold Janssen) -birth place: Goch, Germany -birthdate: November 5, 1837 -death: January 15, 1909 THE FOUNDER (St. Arnold Janssen November 5, 1837 – January 15, 1909) Greatly influenced by his father a man of deep faith who revered the Holy Trinity and the Word of God. THE FOUNDER (St. Arnold Janssen November 5, 1837 – January 15, 1909) His parents were Gerhard and Anna Katharina Janssen. He was second of eleven children.  SOCIETAS VERBI DIVINI Society of the Divine Word A religious congregation Is founded by St. Arnold Janssen Founded on September 8, 1875, Steyl, Netherlands  6,000 Divine Word Missionaries are active in 63 countries, more than 3,800 missionary Servants of the Holy Spirit, and more than 400 Servants of the Holy Spirit of Perpetual Adoration. THE FOUNDER (St. Arnold Janssen November 5, 1837 – January 15, 1909)  Atthe age of 12, he was admitted to diocesan secondary school in Gaesdonck where he received the necessary preparations for his studies. THE FOUNDER (St. Arnold Janssen November 5, 1837 – January 15, 1909) The young student composed an evening prayer for his family that was used for many years afterwards. THE FOUNDER (St. Arnold Janssen November 5, 1837 – January 15, 1909)  In his inauguration sermon on September 8, 1875 -purpose of establishing a mission seminary  “to help proclaim the Gospel among the peoples who do not know God at all, or not in the right way;  to attract young men for this task and to send out as trained missionaries.”  1500 million people on the earth and 210-220 million are catholics. THE FOUNDER (St. Arnold Janssen November 5, 1837 – January 15, 1909) THE FOUNDER (St. Arnold Janssen November 5, 1837 – January 15, 1909) “Kulturkampf” G. culture struggle - the bitter struggle (c. 1871– 87) on the part of the German chancellor Otto von Bismarck to subject the Roman Catholic church to state controls. THE FOUNDER (St. Arnold Janssen November 5, 1837 – January 15, 1909) “The Lord challenges our faith to do something new, precisely when so many things are collapsing in the Church.” -Arnold Janssen  OTHER RELIGIOUS CONGREGATIONS FOUNDED  December 8, 1889- Foundation of Missionary Sisters Servants of the Holy Spirit (SSpS). – BL. HELENA STOLLENWERK, BL. HENDRINA STENMANNS, ST. ARNOLD JANSSEN  December 8, 1896- Foundation of Sisters-Servant of the Holy Spirit of Perpetual Adoration (SSpSAP)  A PORTRAIT OF ST. ARNOLD PART 1: HIS PHYSICAL FEATURES, HABITS AND MANNERISM  Arnold was look-alike his mother  Catherine – visited him every year of his ordination of August 15  164 cm (5 feet 5 inches)  “little Prussian”  Inhis old age he looks like St. Vincent de Paul  A PORTRAIT OF ST. ARNOLD PART 1: HIS PHYSICAL FEATURES, HABITS AND MANNERISM  Underwent operation – a lump was removed from his eye.  Hedid things in a manner he is accustomed.  He had a somewhat soft voice  He knew he was not a good speaker  Poor singer MISSIONARY ASPECT OF THE HOLY SPIRITY  Important in SVD spirituality  Always and everywhere on Mission among us That is the main thrust of the SVD spirituality not only to celebrate mass and institute sacraments but also to spread the good news to the world and in every dynamic of human life by exemplifying the life of Jesus. SVD SPIRITUALITY TO BECOME A MISSIONARY QUARTER-HOUR PRAYER ST. ARNOLD  likewisein his youth he invented a means of personally keeping in contact with God. To do so he prayed the acts of faith, hope and charity every quarter hour at the signal of the church tower clock or the chime of the clock at home or in school. He would pray: QUARTER-HOUR PRAYER ST. ARNOLD STUDIES STUDIES  He graduated from the minor seminary with an Abitur degree (the German equivalent of an associate of arts degree).  Since he was too young to enter the major seminary, he asked the bishop for permission to study at a university and become a qualified teacher. STUDIES  After he succeeded in passing all the exams, he was offered a teaching position in a Berlin school at an attractive starting salary, but he chose to enter the major seminary and become a priest STUDIES  As a student in the university, Father Janssen had entered a mathematics contest. He was the only one to correctly solve the problem, by following a correct procedure.  He used the prize money to treat his dad to a trip to the university and down the Rhine River; his mother was too sickly to make the trip. TEACHER-PRIEST  Service of the Church  Proclaiming the Gospel  Administering the sacraments  Teacher and priest by word and example especially in the local parish and by teaching the boys in the high school, where the bishop had assigned him. TEACHER-PRIEST  As a teacher, he prepared his lessons well and taught the lessons clearly.  Gave fair grades.  He gave scientific lectures to the people of the area for which he charged a small entrance fee to raise money to buy scientific equipment and library books. APOSTLESHIP OF PRAYER PROMOTER  When the organization called the "Apostleship of Prayer" arrived in Germany from France, Father Janssen read about it, liked its devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, the morning offering, the rosary, and prayer for the intentions of our Holy Father. APOSTLESHIP OF PRAYER PROMOTER APOSTLESHIP OF PRAYER PROMOTER  He signed up to become a member and campaigned for others to become members. He likewise wrote a booklet explaining the organization. So zealous was he that the director of the organization had him appointed as diocesan director. Over the next several years, during the longer vacations, Father Janssen walked from parish to parish until he had established units of the apostleship in 300 of the 350 parishes of the diocese. KNIGHT OF OUR LADY KNIGHT OF OUR LADY  Father Janssen and the other priest who was teaching in the school took turns giving religious instructions in the hall on Sundays to out-of-school youth. KNIGHT OF OUR LADY  Father Janssen noticed that the bare hall lacked a proper atmosphere for religious instructions,  sohe got the idea of giving a few lectures on some scientific topics, KNIGHT OF OUR LADY  charginga small entrance fee and thus raising enough money  to have a statue of our Blessed Mother made for the hall. KNIGHT OF OUR LADY  He brought the idea up to some fellow teachers at a coffee break. They thought that it was a good idea, so Father Janssen went ahead with the lectures and raised the money. But when a member of the school board, who had not been at the coffee break heard of Father Janssen’s plan, he objected strongly. KNIGHT OF OUR LADY  He said Father Janssen could use the money for scientific equipment or some other statue but not one of Mary. He persuaded the other members of the school board to side with him. KNIGHT OF OUR LADY  Father Janssen, a true champion of Our Lady, a knight of old, insisted that he had raised the money for a statue of the Blessed Mother. The controversy went on for years. Neither side would give in. KNIGHT OF OUR LADY  Finally,Father Janssen with the bishop’s permission tendered his resignation and the school board accepted it. Father Janssen now found himself free to give his time to an apostolate more direct than being a full-time teacher in a particular school.  SVD MOTTO PRAYER May the darkness of sin and the night of unbelief vanish before the Light of the Word and the Spirit of grace, and may the Heart of Jesus live in the hearts of all. Amen LITTLE MESSENGER OF THE SACRED HEART LITTLE MESSENGER OF THE SACRED HEART  Father Janssen, however, needed a place to stay. Since the Ursuline nuns needed a chaplain for themselves and their students, he found a position with them in Kempen. The Ursuline Sisters had a house for the chaplain, so he stayed there, offered Holy Mass for them and their students, taught one or another class to the girls, and helped out in the parishes in town. LITTLE MESSENGER OF THE SACRED HEART  Since he still had extra time, he began publishing a monthly magazine, and through it, he promoted prayer in the spirit of the apostleship of prayer. While getting material for articles, he learned more and more about the needs of people living in so-called pagan lands who had never heard of Jesus and the Church that He founded. LITTLE MESSENGER OF THE SACRED HEART  He printed 10,000 copies of the first issue of the magazine. Through this publication he animated the German-speaking people to missionary awareness just as he himself had become aware of the missions and their needs through the apostleship of prayer. MISSION SEMINARY MISSION SEMINARY  Father Arnold did not consider himself able to be a missionary and go to the missions  because of age and poor health. MISSION SEMINARY  But he was trying his best to bring the German people to an awareness of the need of sharing the Gospel with people who had not heard of Jesus and his Church. MISSION SEMINARY  The same was the case in founding a mission seminary for training persons to become missionaries.  He did not consider himself to have the necessary qualities to lead in such an enterprise until Monsignor Raimondi of the China mission brought to his awareness MISSION SEMINARY  that he had the necessary background and experience with his 12 years of teaching and  administrationto begin an apostolic school for boys and young men who wanted to become missionaries. MISSION SEMINARY  Once Father Janssen saw God’s guidance and providence  he looked for a property and buildings where a start could be made. MISSION SEMINARY  He went across the border into Holland  because Chancellor Otto von Bismarck and his persecution of the Church in Germany made such an enterprise illegal. MISSION SEMINARY  There in Holland he came across an inn for sale costing just the amount he had received from benefactors,  enough to buy the land and the building with enough left over to make some necessary repairs on the building. Father kept his readers informed of the developments. MISSION SEMINARY A young carpenter applied to become a missionary.  FatherJanssen accepted him on condition that he would do some needed carpentry work while Father Janssen himself would begin to teach him Latin (necessary for priests in those days.) MISSION SEMINARY  Our Blessed Mother’s Birthday, 1875 A diocesan priest and two seminarians near ordination to the priesthood joined Father Janssen. MISSION SEMINARY  He fixed the date of the blessing of the inn and the official beginning of the mission seminary for Sept. 8,  thebirthday of our Blessed Mother, in this way asking her to take the enterprise under her motherly care and protection. MISSION SEMINARY  Father Janssen’s Capuchin brother with the permission of his superior joined Father Janssen to help him get started.  He was Brother Juniper, an excellent beggar. He was able to keep food on the table for the small community. MISSION SEMINARY  Father Janssen soon sent Brother Juniper into a nearby town to buy a chime clock  to give the community members a signal each 15 minutes for praying the Quarter Hour Prayer, previously mentioned. DEVELOPMENT  More and more boys kept coming to the mission seminary.  New additions to the building continued to be made to accommodate them. DEVELOPMENT  A large double church with twin towers had been constructed.  A complete seminary course had been organized.  Father Janssen had acquired a mission territory on mainland China, namely, South Shantung with some 12 million people but only 158 registered Catholics. 1889  As mentioned, the mission seminary at Steyl overflowed with persons.  The founder had sought to establish another foundation in Austria.  He had made some eight trips there and had gone to the officials of church and government, even a few times to the emperor. 1889  He had become an Austrian citizen to receive permission to establish a foundation in Austria.  Finally, he had received permission to have an establishment there in Austria as a religious society, as the Society of the Divine Word. 1889  In the same year, the maids started their novitiate to become sisters, Servants of the Holy Spirit.  The sisters consider their foundation day as December 8, 1889, the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception. 1889  Father Janssen himself was their first novice master since the experienced professed sister he had invited from another congregation to be novice directress had died. ARGENTINA  Likewise in that year, Father Janssen accepted a second mission territory, namely, Argentina.  German Catholic immigrants in Argentina were in danger losing their faith because of lack of priests. ARGENTINA  The officials of the Catholic Church in Rome had pleaded with Father Janssen to send a few of his priests to minister to the Catholics.  The founder saw Argentina as an alternative mission for some of his priests whom he thought would not do well in China but could do well in Argentina.  And in addition, he saw Argentina as a possible mission for his Holy Spirit Missionary Sisters since it was too dangerous at that time to send them to China. IN DEMAND  It is interesting to notice that in the beginning of the mission seminary,  Father Janssen had to beg for a mission territory where he could send his missionaries to proclaim the Gospel,  bishops in various dioceses and officials in Rome begged Father Janssen to send his missionaries to help in the mission work of the Church.  Father Founder also sent his men to other countries in South America, such as Ecuador, Brazil, and Chile. ADORATION SISTERS  A strong believer in and lover of prayer, Father Founder realized his desire of founding a congregation of adoration sisters to worship Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament day and night and plead for the blessing of Jesus on his active priests, brothers, and sisters, especially those in the missions. PERMISSION OBTAINED  The officials of German colonies expressed interest in having German missionaries working in their colonies. Since Father Janssen sent missionaries to Togo and New Guinea, both German colonies, he asked the German government for permission to establish a mission seminary on German soil. PERMISSION OBTAINED  Father Janssen reasoned with the German officials that if the government wanted German missionaries for their colonies, they needed to give permission for establishing a seminary for training those future missionaries.  He eventually received permission for establishing a mission seminary as a school, not as a religious society. From these negotiations arose two minor seminaries, namely Holy Cross and St. Wendelin. JAPAN  AsGod continued to bless the Society of the Divine Word with large ordination classes;  Father Janssen started to look for a new mission for his men.  The Holy Spirit led him to consider a mission among the non-Christians in Japan. JAPAN A bishop who was interested in opening a secondary school in his diocese contacted Father Janssen and offered the project to the Divine Word Missionaries. JAPAN  Father Janssen saw this development as an opportunity to involve his men in teaching and doing research in the sciences, for he knew that the Japanese were very interested in the sciences, and  Father Janssen had trained his seminarians in the sciences according to the second external aim of the Society of the Divine Word, which he had laid down for his members, namely the cultivation of the sciences. JAPAN  Father Janssen told the bishop that he also had missionaries to do pastoral work among the people in the diocese. A contract was drawn up, and Father Janssen started sending missionaries to Japan. AFRICAN-AMERICAN  Mission Brother Wendelin heard about the African- Americans in the Southern United States and alerted the founder.  Father Janssen realized that such a mission would be in keeping with the aim of Society of the Divine Word and allowed a start to be made. AFRICAN-AMERICAN  However because of deep prejudice in the South, the start failed when Father Aloysius Heick had to be smuggled out of the area—in a piano box some say while others say in a coffin—because of the whites who violently opposed starting a school for African- Americans. AFRICAN-AMERICAN  When news reached Steyl, the councilors of Father Janssen favored giving up such a mission.  Father Janssen, however, argued the case by relating that he had a hard time in the beginning to found the Society, and thus Father Heick should try again in another place. AFRICAN-AMERICAN  The second attempt succeeded.  More parishes were opened, and a St. Augustine Seminary for African-Americans was started.  From the seminary, in the era before integration laws, more than a hundred African-American priests were ordained, among whom nine men became bishops. ANTHROPOS  Father Wilhelm Schmidt, a professor at St. Gabriel Mission Seminary who studied the languages and customs of the people in the missions, started a scientific magazine, which he named Anthropos, meaning "man."  In this magazine, Father Schmidt published articles about the languages and customs of various peoples. He received manuscripts from both professors in Europe and missionaries in the missions. ANTHROPOS  Father Janssen encouraged it.  Father Janssen tried to persuade him to have published in the name of the Society of the Divine Word.  Father Janssen even got down on his knees and begged him.  Father Founder foresaw that his successor, as superior, most probably would not fund the publication if it was not a Society publication and thus it would die. THE PHILIPPINES  The last mission that our founder accepted was the Philippine mission. What was the situation? Spanish missionaries, by the grace God, had converted the majority of Filipino people. When most of these missionaries left after America defeated Spain, the nation was almost completely without priests. THE PHILIPPINES A group of Protestant teachers had come and were teaching in public schools. A Filipino priest tried to establish a Filipino church. Father Janssen had been negotiating with an American archbishop of the region in the northern part of the country. THE PHILIPPINES  Father Arnold agreed to send his missionaries to minister to the Catholics in eight parishes of the Province of Abra and to evangelize the non-Christians in the mountains of those parishes. But, since Father Arnold died before he could send the missionaries, his successor, Father Nicholas Blum, sent the first two priests. (Fr. Luis Beckert, SVD and Fr. Juan Scheiermann, SVD) THE PHILIPPINES  Aftera stroke, which weakened and partially paralyzed Father Janssen, he resigned his position as superior general and handed over his responsibilities to his assistant, Father Blum. Father Janssen’s last word was "Jesus," Jesus whom he had served so well. Significant Dates  July 25, 1875 - ordination of Joseph Freinademetz as secular priest for the diocese of Brixen.  September 8, 1875 - Inauguration of the Mission House in Steyl, Holland  March 2, 1878 - First SVD missionaries sent to China, Joseph Freinademetz and John B. Anzer who became the First Bishop.  March 1884-1885 – First SVD General Chapter. Father Arnold’s Foundation became officially known as Society of the Divine Word, in Latin Societas Verbi Divini. Significant Dates  December 8, 1889- Foundation of Missionary Sisters Servants of the Holy Spirit (SSpS) Servarum Spiritus Sancti or Blue Sisters.  Significant Dates  December 8, 1896 - Foundation of Sisters- Servant of the Holy Spirit of Perpetual Adoration (SSpSAP) or Servarum Spiritus Sancti de Adoratione Perpetua or Pink Sisters. Significant Dates  January 28, 1908- Death of Father Joseph in South Shantung China  January 15, 1909- Death of Father Arnold in Steyl  August 15, 1909- Fr. Ludwig Beckert and Fr. Sheiermann, the first SVD missionaries to the Philippines arrived in Manila. A few days later, they Started the SVD mission in Cagutongan(San Isidro). ABRA  August 1912- Arrival of first SSpS sisters in Tayum, Abra  THE END OR THE BEGINNING PREPARED BY: MR. BOB VINCENT Q. SABALLO INSTRUCTOR