Feast Day: April 4
Beatified: May 15, 1743
Canonized: May 24, 1807

Benedict was a slave, but he always knew that his only true master was Jesus. Benedict’s parents, Christopher and Diana Manasseri, were taken from their home in Africa and sold into slavery in Messina, Italy, where Benedict was born in 1524.

Given his freedom when he was 18, Benedict worked as a farmer until he had saved enough to buy a pair of oxen. They were the first things he had ever owned. In time, Benedict joined a group of hermits, prayerful men who lived quiet lives devoted to God. They followed the teachings of St. Francis and were called friars. Benedict worked in the friary kitchen.

Benedict was chosen to train the young men who joined the order. Then he was chosen to be the guardian, or superior, of the friars. He had never wanted to be a leader, but he responded to his new role by being a cheerful and humble leader who inspired others to grow in their love for Jesus and service to others. He could not read or write. When his term ended, Benedict happily returned to his work in the kitchen.

People in Sicily came to the friary to seek Benedict’s advice and to ask for his prayers. He became so beloved that when he died in 1589, the King of Spain paid for a special tomb to be built for him.

St. Benedict the Black is also sometimes called “Benedict the Moor” (yet he is unlikely to have any Moorish heritage). He is the patron saint of African missions and of persons of African descent. He was canonized in 1807 by Pope Pius VII.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benedict_the_Moor

http://saintsresource.com/benedict-the-black

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_Order_of_Saint_Francis

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poor_Sisters_of_St._Francis

http://www.encyclopediadubuque.org/index.php?title=SISTERS_OF_THE_THIRD_ORDER_OF_ST._FRANCIS_OF_THE_HOLY_FAMILY_(OSF)

SISTERS OF THE THIRD ORDER OF ST. FRANCIS OF THE HOLY FAMILY (OSF). The order was founded to care for the wounded of the Austro-Prussian War and a CHOLERA plague. (1) In 1860 four members of the Holy Cross Sisters of Strasbourg, France came to Herford, Germany to operate an orphanage. One was Josephine Termehr who made her final vows as Sister Mary Xavier Termehr in 1862. When the sisters were recalled from the orphanage in 1864, Sister Xavier refused and established a new order of sisters with encouragement from the local pastor and bishop.

As the superior of the new order, Sister Xavier became Mother Xavier and the order took its name from St. Francis of Assisi. In 1875 the sisters were expelled, along with all religious orders, from Prussia by Bismarck. They moved from New York City to Iowa City at the invitation of Rev. William Emonds, pastor of St. Mary’s Parish. In 1876 they opened Mount St. Mary’s Orphanage. Deeply in debt and increasingly at odds with Emonds, a group of eighteen sisters, seven novices and four postulants came to Dubuque in 1878, at the invitation of Bishop John HENNESSY, to start the diocesan orphanage. (2)

The Poor Sisters of St. Francis (Latin: Sorores Pauperae sancti Francisci, abbreviated as S.P.S.F.) (German: Armen-Schwestern vom heiligen Franziskus), also known as the Aachener Franzikanerinnen,^[1] are a religious congregation founded by the Blessed Mary Frances Schervier in 1845 in Germany. Their distinguishing emblem is a red cross with the Instruments of the Passion on it, which was originally embroidered on the scapular of their religious habits.^[2]

Foundation[edit]

Schervier, the daughter of a physician in the city of Aachen—then in the Kingdom of Prussia, who had lost her mother in her infancy, became drawn to care for the poor of the city as she grew into adulthood. A faithful Catholic, she became a member of the Third Order of St. Francis, which provided an outlet for this interest. After serving in this field for several years, in 1845 she formed a small community with four companions, all drawn from the tertiary Franciscan fraternity of the city. They formed this community in response to a desire to help alleviate the desperate conditions of the poor in their region in that period, which resulted from the economic and political upheavals taking place then.^[3]

From 1845 until 1848, the religious sisters cared for the sick in their homes and operated a soup kitchen. They also cared for some of the many prostitutes in a city which was at that time a major spa resort, especially for relief from syphilis. They housed these women in their own small convent and nursed those suffering from that disease. Relying entirely upon donations for support, the Sisters experienced extreme poverty. The potato and grain failures which occurred during that period and the refusal of some benefactors to continue their assistance once the Sisters began ministering to prostitutes intensified their difficulties.

In the latter part of 1848 a mild form of cholera broke out in Aachen, followed by an epidemic of smallpox, and an infirmary was opened in a former Dominican priory, by then the property of the city. The Sisters offered their services as nurses and they were authorized to take up residence in the building to carry out their nursing work. More women joined the group in 1849, expanding the ministry beyond Aachen; not only did they care for victims of cholera, smallpox, typhoid fever, and cancer, but they also supervised women prisoners at the Aachen prison and assisted them in finding employment after their release.^[4] In 1850 they established a hospital for incurables in the old Dominican building, and the home nursing and charity kitchens in different parishes were entrusted to them.^[5]

The community was formally established as a religious congregation of the Franciscan Third Order Regular by the Archbishop of Cologne on 2 July 1851, and Schervier was elected as Superior General. This took place despite objections by some Church authorities to the foundress’ severe position regarding personal poverty. Foundations were established in Ratingen, Mayence, Coblenz (1854); Kaiserswerth, Crefeld, Euskirchen (1855); Eschweiler (1858); Stolberg and Erfurt (1863)^[5]

According to the archivist of the Congregation in that period, they received state acceptance in 1853 mainly because “priests and religious persons were considered suitable for pacifying the people who had been roused by revolutionary ideas”, and that the tide of government sentiment turned when “through unification of the conservative elements in the state, the Revolution (ed. note: see the Revolutions of 1848) had been overcome”.^[4]

Expansion[edit]

Soon after this legal recognition, the Sisters spread their service overseas. An American foundation was established within seven years of its founding, to serve German emigrant communities in New York, New Jersey and Ohio.

The first Sisters arrived in Cincinnati in 1858. the Sisters of the Good Shepherd gave them hospitality. Soon they received the offer of the use of a vacated orphanage for their patients, and in March 1859 they established St. Mary’s Hospital. In 1860 they established a branch-house in Covington, Kentucky.^[5] At the same time, as their Superior General, Schervier oversaw the foundation of several hospitals and sanatoria in both Europe and the United States for those suffering from tuberculosis, then a widespread cause of death, especially among the working classes.

When Schervier died in 1876, there were 2,500 members of the congregation worldwide. The number kept growing until the 1970s, when, like many other religious institutes, they began to experience a sharp decline in membership.

In 1959, the American province of the congregation separated from it, to become an independent congregation called the Franciscan Sisters of the Poor. They have their headquarters in Brooklyn, New York. They are still engaged in operating hospitals and homes for the aged, but have transferred the ownership of many of these institutions to other organizations.

In response to the request of both Congregations, and the research they provided regarding her life to the Holy See, Schervier was beatified in 1974 by Pope Paul VI.