We are a small group of sisters in Argentina, who have been listening to various cries, cries that, over the years, have become clearer and more acute: the cry of the poor and the cry of the earth. We feel strongly that we have to listen to both cries together. We cannot separate them. The circumstances of extreme poverty that we find ourselves in, and which continue today, have generated and continue to generate, questions to which we, along with others, try to respond in the different places where we live.

Our priorities are working with vulnerable women, young people and children, broken people that society casts aside.  We have three projects for children and adolescents in Campana, Corrientes and Zarate where those who participate in the project have teachers who support the teaching they receive at school, they receive a nourishing meal and it also provides them with a safe place to get them off the street.

In Boulogne, the sisters, together with a lay person and the parish priest coordinate a project called “From the Street Corner to a Decent Job”, which consists of accompanying boys and girls on the street many of whom have serious drug problems. The project focuses on helping them obtain legal work which provides health care and a pension.  At the same time it helps the young people take charge of their own life, discovering their own life project and finding where God is in their life.

In Rincón de Milberg a group of pupils and past pupils from Michael Ham School, accompanied by the sisters, carry out activities for young people and adolescents,
For a couple of years now we have been developing a Family Strengthening project aimed at helping families who need to improve their homes. We do this with the help of professionals who donate their time and experience.

All the above is what we DO, but by far the most important thing for us is having the privilege of being their neighbours, being present and accompanying them in their struggles, their pain, their hopes and their joys.  At the top of our list of priorities are visiting their homes, talking with them and praying with them. In our current context and in the experiences of all humanity, we want to discern what God is asking of us. It is a complicated time, full of questions, but we are trying to prepare for a world that is changing at speed.

We, here in the United States are about to enter our 100th year of foundation. On the feast of St Gabriel, Feb 28, 1924, four brave Sisters of the Cross and Passion stood on the deck of the Berengaria leaving Southampton for the United States. Mother M. Gonzaaga McCunnin and Sister Louris Myers, Pius Rudden and Dianysius Fitzpatrick travelled many miles and long days to a land unknown, in answer to the call of Obedience. They entered the harbour in New York on March 7, 1924 where Passionist priests, Felix Ward and Albert, escorted them to the Passionist Retreat House in West Hoboken, New Jersey, and on March 8th they boarded a train for Providence, Rhode Island. The beginnings of the North American Province of the Sisters of the Cross were forming.

We are grateful for the vision of our leadership at that time and of those who throughout the years have answered that call from abroad and here at home.

Today we are an aging group, yet still moving on with full hearts we continue giving hope, and love as each of us is able. Wherever we are we keep ‘in the loop’ of neighbourhood, church and our own religious communities. It is a challenge and a joyful time when we gather for prayer, regional meetings and socials. The internet is also a way of communication we use for staying in touch.

Our ministries call some of us to use prayer as our mode of service. However, our physical presence is visible and viable in the Assumption Parish (our foundation 95 years ago); Our Lady of Calvary Retreat House, serving in dioceses, tutoring, visiting and being present to elderly in numerous places, as well as holding leadership at the Congregation and local levels. We move on with full hearts as God calls us.

The story of the mission in Australia began in 2001 when Sr. Martin Joseph who was in mission in Papua New Guinea reached out expressing the possibility of vocations. At the invitation of the Passionists discernment about forming a community for Mission and formation in Australia began.

In 2007 the Australian Mission was discussed and accepted by the congregation. There was help from the Passionists in Melbourne making this possible by inviting us to work in their parish in Endeavour Hills.

As often happens as we journey in faith, where we think we are being led and where the Spirit is taking us may not be the same. The pastoral ministry of our sisters in St. Paul Apostle Parish, has had far reaching effects on the hundreds of people from many different cultures that are part of the parish including Passionist Companions and Passionist Family Groups and even extended to Vietnam.

At the start of 2020, the sisters concluded their mission in Endeavour Hills after the twelve years of planting seeds, nourishing them it was time to hand over for the Lord to guide the harvest. The plan was for us to leave Australia.However, the global pandemic Covid 19 changed plans. Two sisters still remain in Australia and continue to work within a parish in Melbourne, along with helping in the homeless sector and continuing to maintain connection with the Passionists through Retreat ministry at Holy Cross and with the Passionist Companions.

The presence of the sisters in Botswana is little older than the Diocese of Gaborone, which celebrated its golden jubilee on 8^th October 2016, but even after 58 years the Spirit of compassion, the message of Hope in the cross and passion of our Lord, continues to call and invite willing hearts, hands and feet to hear and feel, to touch, to walk humbly with and accompany those who carry heavy crosses in our lives today.

We are currently two sisters in Botswana living in Metsimotlhabe village in the Kweneng district and in the north western part of Botswana, in Shakawe. We live out our charism in our daily lives giving the gift of who we are to all who we meet, endeavouring to share our Passion for Life with all.

When the first four Cross and Passion sisters arrived in 1952 at the invitation of the then Msgr Urban Murphy CP (who became first bishop of the new diocese of Gaborone) they found a typical underdeveloped country: few schools, poor medical facilities, practically no tarred roads, impoverished people under the protection of the English Crown and a Protectorate Government.

Following independence in September 1966 the new republic of Botswana would go on to develop at a fast rate and transform itself into a nation with good infrastructure, a better education system and well-established healthcare, as well as other industries governing itself and owning its own wealth. As with the good things brought about by economic development, some of the negative aspects were also apparent. The trends of urbanization such as problems of drugs, abuse, unemployment, crime etc were not alien to the urban areas in the north and south of the country.

The Church was also steadily growing and the sisters continued where other religious of the pre-War era had worked and established the foundations of the Catholic church in Botswana. The pastoral formation of the Church in Botswana was served by our sisters and other religious involved in many different and important ministries of the dioceses of Gaborone and Francistown including pastoral ministry, formation and catechesis, education and health, religious formation of the diocesan congregation of the Sisters of Calvary, later on home based care for HIV/AIDS patients and support for their families and communities, and they are still active in the church today

As Botswana grew and developed, the changes affected the communities of sisters as well. Their role and perspectives changed. Qualified teachers, nurses, social workers and counsellors from the local population now fill posts and serve the needs that our sisters and other orders responded to in the early days.  These orders include the Sisters of Calvary, nurtured by our sisters, Sr St Liam Alford CP who was appointed superior of the first convent and Sr Olcan Watt CP appointed Novice Mistress. They were later joined by Sr Martha Burke CP in the foundational work for the new congregation. In the 80’s the sisters moved their attention to new ministries and continued with the pastoral ministry in the growing Church but also looked out to new frontiers in line with the Congregation’s commitment to going out to the peripheries reaching out to the poorest of the poor and marginalised.

The sisters from England arrived in Chile in 1912 at the invitation of Don Gonzales, Archbishop of Valparaiso. They met a group of young people, accompanied by a Passionist Father, Luis Hochendoner, as they tried to make a foundation. The young Chilean women entered our congregation.
The sisters led missionary outreach in the central area of the country. They had a strong presence in education through schools, orphanages and hospitals; they also carried out missions in urban and rural areas.

In 1959, the Church announced to the world that it intended to convene a Council. Around this time, from 1960 to 1964, an event occurred in Chile that motivated all religious to live the spirit of the Council fully through a great mission that became a strong awakening for the Church in Chile. The Passionists became active in the planning and participation of this misson with priests and lay people involved in its implementation. This involvement in solidarity and other missionary activities, has always marked our Passionist presence in Chile.

As a result of the Council’s invitation to live a true transformation, a General Chapter was convoked in 1969 which decided that a group of sisters should live and work inserted in the reality of the people, giving witness by their presence and service among the impoverished populations.

As a result of the Second Vatican Council, the Medellín conference and then the Puebla conference, we in Latin America have gone through different stages of re-reading and reflecting on our Charism. This was done with the whole Latin American Passionist Family as the Passionist Fathers, the Daughters of the Passion (Mexican foundation) and the Passionist Sisters of Signia, as well as Laypeople all joined in these reflections. From this experience, various training meetings and retreats emerged and accompanied our journey alongside the laity.

In the 1970s, Latin America experienced a series of military dictatorships, the one in Chile lasted from 1973-1989. The sisters played an important role both in the defence of human rights, especially among those persecuted by the dictatorship and also by the accompaniment of populations attacked by violence and condemned to poverty.

Currently, and taking into account that the average age of our sisters is eighty years plus, we still have a presence in two schools, we have a community on the outskirts of Santiago located in La Pintana and another in the rural town of Pomaire. We continue to accompany the the lay communities, “Gethsemane”, and also women from the ‘barrios’ and grassroot communities.  We are also trying to regain our presence among young people, with a new Church proposal where they are the protagonists.

Manchester in England is the cradle of our Congregation. Our foundress Elizabeth Prout grew up in Shrewsbury but her family moved to Stone in Staffordshire. It was here that she met the Passionists newly arrived in England. Dominic Barberi, now Blessed Dominic, would have undoubtedly inspired her decision to become a Catholic as he had inspired John Henry Newman. Her conversion led to conflict at home and after many challenges she moves to Manchester. It was here that poverty and deprivation of families and especially children touched Elizabeth’s heart. Supported by Fr Gaudentius and inspired by the Passionist charism she responded and put into action the compassion of Jesus. This response was to attract other women of like-mind who together with Elizabeth planted the seeds of the Congregation in a way that connected it to the lives of the people and culture of the places where they served.

We have inherited the charism from Elizabeth Prout, she had, along with the early Sisters, laid the foundation and it had taken root. Like a tree, which in time grows, its branches spread, and its foliage became thicker and better able to give shade, to protect and welcome all those who approach it. 

Within England we have Sisters, based in Manchester, St Helens, Bolton, London, Halifax, Leeds, Lytham, Liverpool and Ilkley. Sisters, though aging are still involved in supporting initiatives especially working in partnerships with front-line organisations helping refugees, asylum seekers and walking alongside people living with challenges especially isolation and loneliness. We also have the focus of caring for our Sisters who have toiled in ministries both in England and overseas. These communities of care are a powerhouse of prayer as people enter a more contemplative phase of life. The Briery Retreat Centre continues to be a place of welcome and hospitality for those searching and desiring to grow in faith.

Sisters have had to leave some well-loved places after many years of service where they educated generations of young people in many of the Yorkshire and Lancashire towns and cities. We believe that the seeds planted will continue to grow and spread in a way that is good news for new generations. The charism lives on in the lives all who have embraced that flame that Elizabeth Prout lit in the darkness of her times and which is still needed in the complex world in which we now live.

There is a legacy that we can celebrate in the services gifted to the communities in all the places where sisters have lived and worked in Education, Social work, Pastoral Work in parishes, hospitals and prisons, as well as the care given through St Gemma’s Hospice and its extension in Bosnia & Hercegovina.

Elizabeth Prout had visited Ireland when they were struggling financially and she had served the Irish in Manchester. Many who joined the infant community were women from Ireland. Given the connections it was no surprise that Mother Margaret Chambers was invited to Kilcullen in Co Kildare, by the Parish Priest, Canon Langan in 1878.  She and three other sisters, Mary Helen James, Mary Columba Brennan and Mary Joseph duly arrived. Fr Sebastian CP from Mount Argus in Dublin introduced them to a personal contact, Mr Quinn. He became a very generous benefactor to the Congregation, donating land and helping to build the Convent and secondary school in Kilcullen. Sisters taught in the Parish Primary school, adjacent to the Church and then in 1887 the first pupils attended the Secondary school.  Cross and Passion College was a fee -paying boarding school for girls. Boarding was the only way most adolescents could attend secondary schools as there was inadequate public transport.

Alongside this development, movements in the Church were changing the lives of the Sisters. The most significant of these was Vatican 2 during the 1960s.  All religious were invited to revisit the charisms of their foundresses and to redefine their mission emphasising the needs of the marginalised and poor. Sisters were no longer needed in the schools, which were now thriving and so they began to move into other ministries.

In time the patronage of the schools has been handed over to the Le Chéile Trust.[kL1]  The large convents were closed and a number of sisters moved to smaller houses, the first of which was in a new expanding area of Tallaght, in Dublin in 1980. They lived and ministered among the people, as parish sisters and public health nurses. It served as a house of Formation for a short time. Later these ministries evolved to include community development, hospital and prison chaplaincies, a variety of involvements with low-income families and refugees, community education especially with women, as well in retreat centres in the Diocese. Sisters tried to respond as needs became obvious. Another house opened in Clare Road, Drumcondra facilitating ministries in North Dublin, providing accommodation for sisters availing of renewal programmes and for sisters visiting.

As some sisters came to need more care, the convent in Kilcullen closed in 1999 and sisters moved to Marino, in Dublin where a Care Home was opened. Here sisters needing various levels of care are provided for as far as possible. Many people struggle in our society today in many different ways and within our church too. Our planet is also in peril and we feel that our charism can still speak to the current situation. Our understanding of justice has expanded to include care for the integrity of the earth and the whole community of life, not simply humans, just as our spirituality also continues to evolve.

Inspired by the Spirit of the God of Life, who she felt was calling her urgently to be with the poor and among the poor, Sister Joan O´Callaghan arrived from Argentina to Villa El Salvador on November 7, 1972. The context was one of change in the Latin American Church, Medellin (1968) and Puebla (1979), her missionary spirit was challenged and encouraged by the plight of the poor.

She began by working for a year with the Columban Sisters in San Martin de Porres. Then in 1974, she provided services in a home for people with different abilities in Chaclacayo. After a break in Chile, she returned to Villa El Salvador in 1976 and initially lived with the Sisters of Mercy in Villa El Salvador. José Walejewsky, (the first priest of the area and known by everyone as “Joe the Pole”) would be the one in charge of the construction of the house, built next to his Parish Church, “Cristo El Salvador”.  It was made possible by help received from various people, from the Congregation and from the Passionist priests.

On February 17, the first Passionist house was opened and on March 22, and with the arrival of Sr. Anne Langan from Chile, our first community was established in Peru. In 1977, Srs. Patricia Denny and Rosaline Murray joined the community. The sisters were involved in pastoral life and human and community development in response to the many needs of the different groups including children, youth, formation of catechists, and the elderly.
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In 1978 Monsignor German Schmitz gave permission for the construction of a Retreat House in Lurín aimed at forming catechists and nurturing the spiritual life.  On March 17, 1979, the “Holy Family” Christian Formation House was inaugurated in Lurín, under the care of Sr. Eliana Laborda. Other sisters from Chile joined the mission and in April 1980, the first candidate entered the community (Sr. Nelci). In the midst of joys and hopes, the sisters continued their mission, sharing life with the people, standing alongside them as together they faced the challenges and needs that each day presented, like lack of water, the constant arrival of hordes of new people and the growth of terrorism.

On January 12 1983, Sr. Joan O’ Callaghan, died of severe burns received as a consequence of a car accident in which Sr Cathy Kinane was also injured. After the Requiem Mass Sr. Joan’s remains were taken to Nueva Esperanza cemetery, the only cemetery in the area. Villa El Salvador increased in size on a daily basis, presenting new challenges and a sense of urgency to develop new mission spaces. Their discernment led the sisters to establish a second community in Villa el Salvador which led to the growth of basic Christian communities.

Fr. Antonio Garzón had made a request for the Sisters to open a new community in the sixth sector so after much prayer and discernment the community in the first sector closed on Palm Sunday 1995 and the new community, which was also to be the House of Formation, opened and welcomed its first candidate in 1998.

Our Mission was greatly strengthened in 2004 by the Formation of the Passionist Family Groups.  This is a group made up of all the laity with whom we have shared our Spirituality and mission by our presence in Villa El Salvador and although the sisters are no longer in Villa El Salvador the passionist charism lives on.  To this day it continues to encourage our mission and to challenge us to continue sharing our Spirituality in a creative way.

The Spirit of God is never idle so when in late 1998 El Niño hit the south of Peru, attentive to the voice of the Spirit and at the request of the Passionist Fathers, we opened a mission in the district of San José de los Molinos, in the city of Ica.  As part of our discernment we decided as a group that, starting with this mission, rather than building, our missions would be more like campaign tents, which would allow us greater mobility and enable us to be more available to the people. The mission, which lasted for four years, was focussed on Family Catechesis and community building.  In March 2006 at the request of Monsignor Miguel Irizar, (Passionist) we left for the sandbanks of Pachacutec to accompany the poorest of the poor, making children with special needs our priority. Three sisters continue to be a presence in Pachacutec where they respond to the local needs including serving the needs of children with disability.

In 2012, the dream of expanding the congregation of Elizabeth Prout came to Asia. Responding to the invitation of Father Jeff Foale, a Passionist priest from Australia, Sister Brigid Murphy and Sister Anne Cunningham visited Việt Nam to learn about the culture and people. Between the years 2012 to 2015, a group of women interested in living the spirituality of the Passionist Congregation began to form. A proposal to have a presence in Vietnam was agreed by at the General Chapter in 2014. By 2016 the first community was officially formed with Sister Rosaleen Murray and Sister Cecilia Foley arriving from Ireland to accompany and develop the community in Việt Nam with four young women whose desire was to become Passionists.

The Sisters of the Cross and Passion in Việt Nam have grown and now form two communities, one in Ho Chi Minh and one in Dong Nai where a new house has been built in 2023.  The community continues to have two formation houses while currently extending their mission outreach and searching for ways in which they can grow into ministry and become self-supporting, sustainable communities with the ability to respond to needs.

Living the spirit of a Passionist sister, the foundation of community life is in sharing with one another the experiences of encountering God through the celebration of the Eucharist, through praying and contemplating the Passion and Resurrection of Jesus which we share with all our brothers and sisters no matter who they are.

This requires each of us to step out of ourselves with courage, to make a flexible (not rigid) commitment to the world in which we live, to listen to the will of God in us and to respond generously to His invitation for a common purpose. At the same time, each individual sister must be willing to prepare herself to move forward and spread her joy to those she meets, in the place where she lives, in the pastoral work of the parish, and in cooperation with other congregations and lay people in the diocese through different works of compassion, according to her abilities.