Where We Live and Work

The Congregation of the Franciscan Missionaries of St. Joseph is an International Franciscan Community of one hundred and forty six sisters living in England, Ireland, The Netherlands, South America, Africa and The United States.

The lives and works of the sisters in these parts of the world are a contemporary expression of the Incarnational vision of Alice Ingham, the congregation’s foundress. Founded in 1883 by an ordinary woman working in a Lancashire cotton mill. She was the daughter of a Rochdale baker and there was nothing extraordinary about her life except her strong desire to do something special for God and a longing to be a more compassionate presence in the world. By forming community with like-minded local women, all members of the Franciscan Third Order, Alice was led to a deeper and more meaningful expression of the Gospel through her ministry to those around her.

Where we are

In England there are 75 Sisters and 14 Communities.

In the Netherlands there is a community of 3 Sisters

In Ireland there are 20 sisters and 4 Communities

In the United States there are 2 Sisters

In Ecuador there are 10 sisters and 3 Communities

In Kenya there are 37 Sisters and 8 communities

How We Serve

Living in community and strengthened by prayer we are enabled to love and serve God and His people through our diverse ministries, responding to the needs of today’s Church and world. As Franciscan Missionaries of St. Joseph we believe that we have something to offer our world today. We are called to bring hope to those around us. Through our ministries we endeavour to respond to the ever-changing needs of our time, sharing the desire of St. Francis to be at the service of the Church and at the heart of her life.

We invite others to share our journey of faith, living in community and helping one another to become people of compassion and peace.

Ministries undertaken by the Franciscan Missionaries of St. Joseph

• Hospital, University and Prison Chaplaincies
• Nursing
• Teaching
• Pastoral Care
• Social Care
• Care of the Elderly
• Administration
• Counselling
• Community Work
• Parish Work
• Spiritual Direction
• Prayer Groups & Retreat Direction
• Praying

Alice Ingham was a woman of her time – responding to the challenges of her time. Alice endeavoured to promote the Kingdom of God among her neighbours by doing, good in the simple ways that presented themselves, caring for those around her whilst carrying on her life as a shopkeeper. In her humble life she exercised common sense and wisdom, she suffered misunderstandings but never gave up, she loved, she cared and like St. Francis – compassion, hospitality and simplicity were her hallmarks. Her advice was:

“Be united with each other and work for God alone”

We are women of our time and we have a responsibility to respond to the challenge of our time. When we profess our Vows we make a formal commitment to stand by the poor and oppressed, striving to make a radical response to he Gospel. Today and each day we face the challenge of minority – among the voiceless, the poor, the disrespected, those whom society does not allow to belong. Today more than ever we are called to be counter-cultural-contradictions in our time, living as we do in a culture of blame with too frequent incidents of atrocities, hatred, violence and ethnic cleansing in our broken world.