THE POVERELLE SISTERS
THE POVERELLE SISTERS
The Congregation of the Poverelle Sisters was founded on 22nd May 1869 in Italy by Blessed Luigi Maria Palazzolo.
We seek to in the Church a gift as our founders were, and at the same time serve the poorest with a program of the Palazzolo: "“ I seek and gather the ‘rejected of others’ because where another provides he/she does much better than what I could do; but where another cannot reach, I seek to do something as best as I can.”
So we poverelle Sisters touched by the love of God expressed by Jesus who died naked on the cross abandoning Himself to the Father, dedicate our lives to following Christ poor and obedient, serving Him in the poorest.
Following Jesus poor, crucified and naked on the cross, abandoned by all, for us means serving those whom society or conditions of life made them feel marginalized, rejected, abandoned, lonely, unwanted; for they resemble the crucified Jesus, naked on the Cross. The nakedness of Jesus is reflected in them, just as Jesus was without dignity, so too many lack all dignity.
So the specific mission of the Congregation is that of dedicating itself to the poorest of the poor. For Palazzolo, “a poor is someone who lacks material and spiritual goods and, consequently lives in ignorance, immorality, underdevelopement; one who has no body to help him”.
According to our preferential choice, we work in those poorest areas not yet reached by others. We work also in Hospitals, Health centre, school, Orphanage, hospice, parishes, slums …
We serve the poor in ways and with mean which correspond to the needs of the place and as the changes of the times require, with sensibility and openness to every new situation of need for the promotion of the person.
We cultivate an attitude of availability so that we may intervene according to the needs and with draw when another can reach.
The first years of the third Millennium see the Congregation of the Poverelle assume more and more an international face and to express a style and the formalities of service more and more shareholder with how much they have to fate the hearts of those people that a complex consumer society put more and more to the margins.
The congregation of the poverelle was spread over sea: First in Europa; France, Belgium, Swiss land; then in Africa: Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Ivory Coast, Malawi, Kenya and recently Burkina Faso; in America: Brazil and Peru.
Those (lay people)who share our Charism and feel themselves called a particular type of service among the poorest of the poor, are spiritually part of our family in the manner proper to their state of life. They can associate themselves with our Congregation in order to fulfill its mission in the world.