The Congregation of the Sisters of Bon Secours will celebrate its 200-year anniversary in 2024. Founded on Jan. 24, 1824, in Paris, France, the Sisters of Bon Secours were recognized for providing health care to patients in their homes. Today, the sisters practice their healing mission in parishes, hospitals, hospices, health clinics, retreat centers and home health and community programs around the globe and have health care facilities in the United States, Ireland and Peru.
“We know that our mission of compassion, healing and liberation is needed as much in our world today as it has ever been,” said Congregation Leader Rose Marie Jasinski. “Impelled by the Holy Spirit and renewed by the fire of our original call, we are moving toward the future with renewed energy and hope.”
The Sisters of Bon Secours established its first USA ministry in Baltimore in 1881 and quickly expanded to serving communities along the East Coast in Washington, D.C., Virginia, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, New York, South Carolina and Florida. Read more about the congregation’s 200-year history.
“Decades of nursing the sick, dying and poor have given us firsthand knowledge about the social determinants of health, and we have worked to address them by engaging in activities to aid the economically poor, promote social justice, work on issues such as decreasing gun violence and recognizing water as a human right,” said Elaine Davia, area leader of the Sisters of Bon Secours, USA. “We will continue to build on the rich tradition of those very strong women who founded our congregation while evolving to meet today’s needs.”
In honor of its 200th anniversary, the Sisters of Bon Secours, USA, will host a concert on Palm Sunday, March 24, 2024, at 4 p.m. at the Bon Secours Retreat and Conference Center at 1525 Marriottsville Road in Marriottsville featuring The Christian Choir of Howard County performing “Who Is This King?” To learn more and attend the concert, visit www.BonSecoursRCC.org or call 410-442-3120.
The Sisters of Bon Secours, USA, will also hold a celebratory Mass in May 2024 at the Baltimore Basilica with special celebrant Archbishop William E. Lori and homilist Ronald D. Witherup, Society of Priests of Saint Sulpice.
The Congregation of the Sisters of Bon Secours is a religious congregation of Roman Catholic women comprised of sisters from six countries: the United States, France, Great Britain, Ireland, Peru and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Sisters of Bon Secours serve as caregivers, spiritual directors, chaplains, administrators, community organizers, board members, advocates and more. Lay people are engaged in the sisters’ mission through Bon Secours Associates, Bon Secours Volunteer Ministry, Bon Secours Young Adults and the Bon Secours Retreat and Conference Center. The congregation’s Motherhouse is in Paris, and its USA headquarters are based in Marriottsville, Maryland, on the campus where the Bon Secours Retreat and Conference Center is located. (www.bonsecours.us)
