The Congregation of Jesus Mary Joseph is a Catholic Religious Women’s Congregation founded by Rev. Fr. Mathias Wolff SJ in 1822 at Amersfoort, in the Netherlands. The members of the Congregation of JMJ walk in the footsteps of their Founder in various parts of the world, carrying out the same mission of liberation and the salvation of humanity inspired by his missionary zeal and charism of ‘an ever-adaptable apostolic availability’.
The Congregation of JMJ
The Congregation of Jesus Mary Joseph (JMJ) was founded on 29th July 1822 under the name: ‘Pédagogie Chrétienne’, meaning the Institute of Christian Education. In addition to it, the founder named the Congregation “Sisters of Blessed Virgin Mary” and the Society of Jesus Mary Joseph. In 1848, once the Constitution of the Country allowed the foundation of religious congregations the name Pédagogie Chrétienne was not used, and since the 1962 chapter, the name “Sisters of Blessed Virgin Mary” too was stopped.
Global presence of JMJ: The flame of the liberation of the Founder was brought to Indonesia by six Dutch missionaries in 1898 and to India in 1904, when seven Dutch missionaries arrived at Guntur in Andhra Pradesh to start their mission of mercy, through health care, education, and evangelization. The same flame was ignited afresh in 1962 when three provinces were erected, namely the Netherlands, Indonesia, and India.
Further, JMJ sisters from the Netherlands, supported by sisters from India, started their mission in Australia (1961 – 1982) and Tanzania, East Africa (1961-1975), and eventually handed over these ministries to the native religious. In 1990, the missionary spirit of the Indian and Indonesian sisters led them to travel across the oceans to begin the JMJ mission in Ghana, West Africa, which eventually became a region in 2009.
The mission in Rome began with the Dutch missionaries at ‘Collegio Olandese’ in Rome in 1931 and continued until 2005. From 1985 to 2005, Indian sisters also collaborated in this mission. The JMJ mission in Rome has been continued in collaboration with SEDOS (Service of Documentation and Research on Global Mission). Sisters from Indian provinces were sent to America in 2012 to collaborate in the education apostolate at Zuni, New Mexico, and Page, Arizona, under the Gallup Diocese.
The strenuous efforts of sisters in India yielded rich fruit in the Lord’s vineyard, and eventually the glow of the flame spread across the country, resulting in the formation of three provinces in 1987 and a fourth in 2009, along with the formation of a region in Ghana, West Africa.
Formation of the New Congregation of Jesus Mary Joseph
The prevailing situation in the Society of JMJ necessitated a discussion at the 2011 General Chapter on the restructuring of the Society. A prolonged deliberation led to the decision to form two new independent Institutes. The Holy See issued the Decree on 10th September 2016 for the establishment of two new Congregations with Papal Rights, namely: Indonesia and the Netherlands, as the Congregation of Sisters of Jesus Mary Joseph, and India and Ghana, as the Congregation of Jesus Mary Joseph (JMJ).
As a new congregation, it spread its presence in various other parts, meeting the needs such as: collaboration with the diocese of San Antonio, Texas, Germany, Northern Italy, Trentino (Arco), Austria, Hungary, and in Enschede, The Netherlands.
The Congregation of Jesus Mary Joseph aims at making a difference in the lives of people through the ministries of education, healthcare, social work, pastoral care, and evangelization. These ministries take a rights-based approach and strive to empower marginalized, exploited, and vulnerable groups of society through the above ministries.