Bicentenary Birthday of St. Katharina Kasper, our Foundress

Poor Handmaids of Jesus Christ celebrates the bicentenary birth anniversary of their Foundress St. Katharina Kasper on 26 th May, 2020 amidst Covid-19 pandemic and nationwide lockdown. Our General Leadership Team prepared a special prayer for this great event and circulated it to all the provinces and pro-regions of our Congregation.

We had a meaningful celebration of bicentenary birthday in all our communities in St. Mary’s Province, Bangalore. At the end of their reflective Morning Prayer Service in Seva Nilaya, Bangalore the Sisters processed to their campus and planted a memorial plant honouring the event.

As we contemplate this great event of the bicentenary birthday of our Foundress, St. Katharina we are overwhelmed with gratitude to God for the gift of her to the Holy Catholic Church and to the world at large. Though 200 years have passed since Katharina’s birth, and 122 years since her death, her legacy is as fresh a blessing now as it was in her 78 years upon Earth. Her vibrant relationship with the Spirit continues to impel and activate us in our day and age. The outreach of the Spirit through her to those in need of charity, justice, hope and human presence is as needed in this era as it was in two centuries ago.

We believe it is her intercession that brought Poor Handmaid presence in India as well. We have touched the lives of many through the ministries of health, education, social action and pastoral service. During these 50 years of growth, struggle and service we have been accompanied by the example and charism of our dear Mother. She had a particular attentiveness to the needs of the poor and the suffering. We continue in her love and attentiveness by serving the poor and marginalized in multiple ways.

During these years we have received countless blessings of support, gratitude and relationship with those we minister to and minister with. Christ has been present in us and among us and is especially present in the lives of those deprived of their full potential by poverty and injustice. We pray as we celebrate the 200 th anniversary of her birth that we may be as openly receptive to the movement of the Spirit as she was and continues to be through us.