By F. M. Britto
Raipur, Oct 9, 2023: The Medical Sisters of St Francis of Assisi celebrated their 50 years of presence in India on October 7 at their first Indian house at Pithora in Raipur archdiocese of Chhattisgarh.
Thanking for their presence and services, Archbishop Victor Henry Thakur of Raipur, the main celebrant of their Golden Jubilee celebrations, remarked, “Pithora is your Bethlehem, your birthplace… We can see the church’s and the people’s development due to you presence… 50 years is not our accomplishment, but God’s… It is not accomplished, but accomplishing.”
Their German Mother General Margarete Ulager, who was present along with nuns from other provinces, remarked, “Those first sisters laid the invisible cornerstone for the Indian province here in Pithora, supported by so many good hearted people. Pithora is the heartbeat of the Indian province. You have beautifully contributed to build the church. It was the work of the Holy Spirit.”
The jubilee celebration was attended by their many nuns, besides a number of priests, nuns and lay people from and outside the archdiocese. January 7, 2023, marked their 50 years presence in India.
The congregation was founded in Munster, Germany, on July 2, 1844, by Franciscan Father Christopher Bernsmeyer. “We have a very humble origin,” says their Indian Provincial Sister Johnsy Kurisunkal.
These German nuns landed up in Raipur in central India, on the invitation of the first Raipur Prefect Apostolic German Pallottine Monsignor John Weidner. The Raipur prefecture had been entrusted to the Society of the Catholic Apostolate (Pallottines) of the Southern German province in 1951, bifurcated from the neighbouring Nagpur archdiocese.
Their first German Sister Vulmara Hannovar, reached India on January 7, 1973. Initially she stayed in the 68 km away Chhuhipali mission parish with German Catholic lay doctor Adelheid Huffer, who began the Pushpa Catholic mission hospital there.
On the following year German Sister Gerburg Aufderheide was sent to Raipur to assist her.
But Sister Vulmara had to return to her country soon since the government refused to renew her visa.
Monsignor Weidner directed these pioneer sisters to serve in Pithora mission parish, 101 km away Raipur, the capital of present Chhattisgarh.
Initially Sister Gerburg ran a small health center in this rural mission and brought up abandoned babies in a low-roofed tiled hut.
Sister Gerburg was joined in 1978 by late German Sister Hedwig Kappelhoff, who died due to cancer in 2000. Due to visa problem, many foreign nuns came to assist them with tourist visa.
Inspired to begin their congregation in India, they began to recruit Indian girls since 1979 from various regions and trained them.
It was declared a region in 1994. The Indian province is managed by the team of native nuns since February 1998 when they appointed their first Indian member Sister Rosily Menacherry their regional superior.
It was raised to be a province on February 2, 2013, appointing native Sister Lima Arackal as its first provincial superior.
The congregation now has 95 professed Indian nuns. Over the last 44 years the congregation has trained the Indian nuns in various professional and religious studies.
They are serving in 17 centers in ten Indian arch/dioceses of Raipur (Chhattisgarh), Jabalpur (Madhya Pradesh), Nagpur (Maharashtra), Lucknow (Uttar Pradesh), Bareily (Uttarakhand), Ranchi and Hazaribagh (Jharkhand), Trivandrum, Thamarassery and Ernakulam-Angamaly (Kerala).
Besides, two of them are serving in their General Leadership as General Vicaress and General Councillor. Two of them are involved in the pastoral ministry in Kiel, Germany; three Indian nuns take care of their elderly nuns in U.S. and two of them are doing their ecclesiastical studies in Rome.
Following their charism, “Healing Presence”, they bring “the healing presence of Christ into the lives of the needy and the abandoned children” by running schools, kindergartens, health centres, leprosarium, visiting families and involving in socio-pastoral activities, says Sister Johnsy.
They are also planning to expand their ministries in other Indian dioceses too. But they feel the crunch in religious vocation. They are also endeavouring to be financially independent.
The international congregation has four provinces: Germany, Poland, Japan, India and a canonical house in U. S. They serve in Africa, Haiti, Kazakhstan, Japan, Korea, Poland, U.S and Germany, besides India.
The octogenarian Sister Gerburg is enjoying her retirement at Pithora, by caring birds, animals, flower garden, their young members and their orphan’s kids, in the true spirit of their spiritual Father St Francis of Assisi. They call her “Amma,” meaning Mother. She will celebrate 50 years of her presence in India next year on January 25.
Thanking for the love and sacrifices of Sister Gerburg, Mother Ulager addressed her, “Dear Amma, you have become a grace-filled, beautiful and gentle grandmother.”