Page 19 - SJC Constitution

Knananite Community, the members of which, while
dedicating themselves fully to the compassionate love of
Christ, were to make the weak and supportless of the society
experience the self-same love.

7. Our saintly Founding Father, full of faith in God, spent days
and night in prayer before the Eucharistic Lord, begging for
light and strength from above that was needed for an effective
and abiding discharge of the apostolate of compassionate love
through the founding of a new religious community.
Simultaneously with that, bearing great travails and pangs in
mind and body, he toiled hard for the realization of his life-
dream. As a result of this, with the permission of the then
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Bishop Alexander Choolaparambil, an institute with the name
St. Thomas Asylum was begun on May 3, 1925 at Kaipuzha.

8. Our Founding Father was convinced that the service of a
group of good-natured, sacrifice-prone and ëbodily healthyí
sisters was required so that the St. Thomas Asylum, which
he had planted and watered, might be further nurtured and
brought to fruition. Accordingly, with the permission of
Bishop Choolaparambil, he admitted five young women as
aspirants; giving them religious habit on July 3, 1928, he
founded a religious congregation in the Diocese of Kottayam,
the first one erected in the Diocese for the care of the destitute,
under the title ìSt. Josephin Sabhakuttamî (St. Josephís
Sistersí Congregation).
Foundational Charism

9. The two constitutive elements of the foundational charism
or identity of a religious institute are the charismatic heritage
bequeathed to it by its founder and lived by the community
of its first members.

10. The Founderís charism of an institute lies, essentially, in the
Spirit-inspired and illumined inner vision and style of action

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