Our
Congregation
We are a female religious congregation founded in 1884 by Bl. Honorat Koźmiński and Eleonora Motylowska. Our Founder boldly read the signs of the times and founded congregations of hidden life, where the testimony of life according to Gospel was the basic and timeless form of apostolate. Servants of Jesus were sent among servants, who at that time were at the margins of society. Franciscan spirituality was to mark our charism of hidden service.
We live in the Franciscan spirituality. Our charism is to imitate Christ who served people and lived hidden in Nazareth.
We serve Jesus in two ways: directly, by living according to three vows: chastity, poverty and obedience, as well as by prayer, penance, sacrifice and creation of community, and indirectly, by serving our neighbors, especially girls.
Jesus Christ the Servant is our Lord and Bridegroom. In imitating Him, we follow Mary, His Mother, because she called herself the handmaid of the Lord. Externally, she was no different from the women of her times, her Divine motherhood was hidden from people, so she is for us a model of hidden service to God and our neighbor.
Our spirituality is rooted in the life and attitude of Saint. Francis of Assisi. He is our spiritual father and a role model in fulfilling God's will, in prayer, in evangelizing enthusiasm and in humble love for our neighbors.
Blessed Honorat Kozminski called religious consecration the "royal secret" of a person called to God's service. As with any secret, we speak about this only to a few. We do not show that we are nuns, we do not wear habits. We try to be zealous Catholics. Hidden life helps us strive for holiness and teaches us humility. It facilitates our apostleship because we can reach distant and even people who are reluctant or hostile to God and the Church.
The main apostolic task of the Congregation is to serve girls. We do this by helping them, in particular in preparation for a responsible life in accordance with the Gospel and their own vocation, as well as to start a job and be witness to Jesus Christ. We run retreats, days of prayer and courses, provide boarding schools, dormitories and hostels, and help find a job.
We also support families, helping them to raise children by running community centers, schools, kindergartens, catechesis, and through formation meetings for parents.
We support disabled and elderly people in nursing homes.
We perform all these works as entrusted to us by Jesus Christ the Servant, who is concerned about every human being.
In 1992, the Congregation began mission work in Bolivia, serving local residents by preaching Christ, preparing for holy sacraments, maintaining churches and chapels, brinking the Eucharist to the sick, working in schools, kindergartens, health clinics, supporting the poor and participating in expeditions to take the Gospel to places located far from pastoral centers. Through our missionaries, one can spiritually adopt Bolivian children living in difficult conditions.
We currently live, pray and work in 31 communities in Poland, Bolivia, Ukraine and the USA.
At the Congregation, there is the Apostolic Association of Mary’s Daughters for girls and women who have a vocation to live a life consecrated to God in the world and to apostolate in communion with the Congregation of the Servants of Jesus, outside of life in community. Mary’s Daughters evangelize above all by the exemplary life within their own families and at work.
Our religious formation begins with a period of aspiration, followed by a year-long postulate, a two-year novitiate and a six-year period of temporary vows, crowned with perpetual religious profession.
The General House of the Congregation is in Warsaw, while the novitiate is located in Otwock.