The congregation came into being in 1839, at Saint-Servan, a small town on the Breton coast, whence have come so many heroes, saints and poets. (The Bretons have a strong faith, pure hearts, and strength of body. They come of a race that is brave yet peace loving, and, to quote the poet, nothing can move them when they say: I will.)

Jeanne Jugan, formerly a servant and no longer young, found comfort and happiness in her own poverty in her loving devotion to those poorer than herself, and wishing to do more for them, began by taking into her humble attic a poor old woman, blind and neglected, and gave herself entirely to her service. She took another, and yet another, certain that she would be giving but little if she did not give herself. A few friends younger than herself joined forces with her; so many people have others to wait on them, why not wait on the poor who need it so much? Why not help them by taking their place? So the Sisters went out begging on their behalf.

In 1841, they moved to a larger house, to quarters that were a little less wretched. In 1842, they were to be found in a much bigger house.

After they had been in existence for 15 years, there were 36 houses and 500 Sisters, and the institute had already been approved by the Holy See.

In 1851, the congregation extended its activities to England, in 1853, to Belgium, in 1863 to Spain, in 1868 to Africa, the United States and Ireland, in 1869 to Italy, in 1882 to Asia, in 1884 to Australia, and in 1885 to South America. Homes were then founded in the mission fields of India and China.

Such a vast and rapid extension of this work provides one of the finest chapters of the history of the Catholic Church in the 19th century.

Rich and poor became friends of the work, vying with one another in giving numerous vocations which, however, were never sufficient.

Today the congregation consists of 309 homes, in which 5,265 Little Sisters have the care of some 47,000 old people. These homes are distributed as follows: France 109, Belgium 12, Great Britain, Ireland and Jersey 29, Spain 49, Portugal 2, Italy and Malta 19, Switzerland 1, Turkey 1, China 3, India and the Malay States 6, Burma 1, Africa 4, the United States of America 51, Canada 2, South America 12, Oceania 8.

THE LITTLE SISTERS

As we approach one of the homes of the Little Sisters, everything attracts our attention except the Little Sisters; though they are present everywhere, they seem to have the gift of remaining unseen. In the home they are everywhere, yet not one of them is still for a moment, unless it be to perform some service which is required of her.

Quick, silent, calm and self-effacing, they are as if they were not. This is not a poetic reflection but a fact.

It is not easy to find in a library a book on the Little Sisters of the Poor, their history does not excite the attention of the public. Indeed they make but little stir, either as individuals or as a congregation. To seek attention would seem to them a want of consideration for the poor, an outrage against charity which ceases to be charity when it sounds the trumpet, as our Lord has said. Their congregation, which is among the most important, has nothing to say about its spiritual life or its method of religious formation. The work claims the whole attention of the Sisters, and is sufficient to make known the spirit which animates them. Nonetheless, we think it necessary to lift, be it ever so little, the veil under which true charity is hidden.

We, clergy and laity, have recourse to them whenever it is a question of finding a home for some old person, but how seldom and how feebly do we realize the elementary duty, I will not say of thanking them, but of understanding them. For many of us, the Little Sisters of the Poor are no more than a "useful address." After we have made our offering, ought we not to ask how it is possible in these days so avid of pleasure, of advancement and of ease, that a girl, frequently belonging to a family not merely comfortable but rich, says farewell to her home and all her dear ones, to the prospect of a happy home of her own, to her freedom and comfort, and consecrates the whole day and every day for the rest of her life, together with herself, to the service of the aged poor. Henceforth she belongs no more to this world, unless it be to recognize in the first old man or woman who comes her way her brother, her father, her child, above all her God, to see them thus and to act accordingly.

She will not meet the charm of childhood or the spriteliness of youth, nor will the hope of success be hers, but she will comfort the memory of evil days,

the pains of a wornout body and the fear of death. She will sacrifice her own youth wholly and forever in order to bring a little happiness and the hope of eternal life to destitute old age.

How is such a miracle as this made possible?

WHAT IS A LITTLE SISTER OF THE POOR?

It is difficult to say, especially if one is unwilling to make use of general terms and commonplace expressions, or of flattering remarks which in this case would be not only stupid but offensive.

This much is certain, that the vocation of the Little Sister of the Poor is a gift of God. The gifts of God are not like our gifts. "dead things"; they are "life," a life that is new and evergrowing, evermore abundant, evermore deeply rooted in the soul.

What then, is their vocation? There is no doubt, that, seen from outside through earthly eyes, their life seems to be a life "lost," but has not our Lord said that "he that shall lose his life for me shall find it"? Does not this other life begin at baptism, and is it not the real, the only life of the Christian? The Little Sister, then, is one who takes the Gospel literally, and plunging into the fire of the love of Jesus, loses her earthly life. It would not be enough to lose this life, unless one lived the other life, the real life.

How does she live it? It would seem that the heavy weight of her hard task of helping others would render it cheerless, weaken it, destroy it. A man who is wholly taken up with a long and difficult task is reduced to the condition of a mere machine. But this is not the case with the life of the Little Sister. Together with her unceasing care of the poor, she knows the profound peace of frequent prayer, moments of sweet solitude. It is not that she has the opportunities of long meditations or spiritual reading: the Little Sister, busy with her work, can find in it the source of peace and recollection in which she can refresh herself all day long with that longing for God and for souls, that longing for which our Lord suffered and for which He died in the midst of such terrible pains.

Moreover, her religious formation has accustomed her to a continual presence, the presence of God in her soul; she lives "within" because God is in her and must be in her: training which may appear meticulous and exhausting, but which on the contrary is virile and invigorating. It is well known that as the years pass this solid and necessary habit enables her to perform heroic acts as well as her ordinary duties.

When the last hours of the old people draw near, the Little Sisters are always with them. This watching at the beside of the dying all through the long nights, after the arduous duties of the day, becomes for the Little Sister a source of holy joy; she is beside the cross, the cross of a fellow-creature who is also a Christian, as though Christ our Lord were dying on the same cross and she had been given the doleful honor of receiving His last breath at Mary's side.

It is this formation which gives its character to all that she does; this interior contemplation continues every day forever, controls her actions and inspires them, impels her to action whilst it nourishes and directs her: Jesus lives in her soul, becomes even the life of her body.

In the company of the old people, caring for them as a mother for a child, the Little Sister remains always in a state of recollection; she can teach others to practice this recollection, while she herself is always on her guard against distraction.

The daily begging round furnishes the Little Sister with a continual opportunity of imitating Jesus. Our Blessed Lord became man to redeem mankind; the Little Sister becomes poor to help the poor and to beg on their behalf. Begging is not a formality or a mechanical rite, it is not meant to attract attention, though it might seem to those who do it on particular occasions to be mere ostentation. Begging all day long and every day is quite another matter, indeed it is.

Sometimes you hold out your hand with an interior repugnance which has to be overcome. Sometimes you hold out your hand in vain, or, what is worse, instead of the alms you expect, you get a curt refusal or vulgar abuse."The perfect joy," St. Francis was wont to say, "is the supreme joy of the cross and the crucified."

The Little Sister, even though she may have come from a noble family and have had all the advantages of education-and this is not uncommon-spends her life as a Little Sister so removed from all that concerns her as a person. and gives herself so utterly to the old people that not one of them leaves any

record of her own intimate life. When she dies she leaves nothing of her own experiences, because she has done nothing but devote herself to the poor, day by day and hour by hour, until she has given herself entirely to them.

It is in this hidden life of complete renunciation which is known only to God that she finds the opportunity of living fully, as fully as is possible for a human being, the life of Him "Who being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God; but emptied Himself taking the form of a servant. being made in the likeness of men, and in habit found as a man. He humbled Himself, becoming obedient unto death, even to the death of the cross."

HER IDEAL

We do not pretend to describe the vocation of a Sister; what we have said is meant to show that the Little Sister aims at conformity with Jesus, through conformity with the poor to whom she gives hospitality, through the transformation of herself with the poor, subjecting herself to them and bearing their infirmities.

The vow of hospitality in addition to the three traditional and customary vows involves the entire sacrifice of herself to those whom she receives, that is to say, the poor, who to her are Christ Himself. Has He not said: "I was a stranger and you took me in"?

The world knows and receives guests of every sort, except the poor, the vagrant, unfriended poor. The Little Sister, on the contrary, receives none but the poor, she gives him a roof, food, and attention, and sometimes restores to him a Christian soul at the price of the complete sacrifice of herself. How sweet is death to her who from her girlhood has given herself to Jesus with a love that is stronger than death.

As a rule men admire those who risk their life in doing their duty; contempt of death is, they say, the mark of a great soul. He who is able to expose himself to danger is a hero. But the world does not know what it means to give oneself in obscurity, without respite, silently and little by little to wear oneself out in an ungrateful task and never to tire of it, solely for the love of mankind and of what is best in mankind, that is to say, the image of God and the likeness to His Son Jesus Christ. The Little Sister chooses this, and behold her vocation. To be and to do what Jesus has been and has done, by His grace and for love of Him, for the good of the aged poor.

AN APPRECIATION

The writer of these simple lines was chaplain to the old people's home in Rome as a young priest and as a middle-aged man. He considered it a privilege to die in the care of the Little Sisters, but this was not the will of God for him, and his disappointment is great. The austerity of their life forbids extravagant remarks and, above all, praise, but he is obliged to declare that more than once he has seen--as far as his spiritual infirmity allowed-the charity of the Little Sisters reach the very extreme, without their being aware of it. Obliged to devote his time to study and to art, studies which are serious and often provide food for melancholy reflections, he is not surprised that the Little Sisters of the Poor, though far removed from the distractions of high estate and the publicity attending on the vagaries of fortune, have nonetheless stirred the souls of men of learning and poets. An anthology devoted to the Little Sisters would hardly be a lengthy one, but it would be sublime.

It is a curious fact, though not difficult of explanation, that the poor and simple as well as the busiest and most worldly see in the Little Sisters of the Poor privileged souls living on the threshold of eternity, and visit their homes (ob remedium animae) as was said of old "seeking the mountaintops" to enjoy in the midst of the tempests and the darkness of the times a foretaste of the light and peace to come. Such was my lot for 25 years.

A Little Sister of the Poor knows only one care: the abundance, or rather the flood of misery brought to the doors of the home, poor old people beseeching them to take them in. It is a flood which increases daily and the Little Sisters cannot put bounds to it, cannot hold it back. The torrent of requests for admission gives them no rest, overwhelms them. But while the number of poor increases, the number of those who love them and are ready to sacrifice themselves for them diminishes.

Will they not find among the Christian youth of today, young women who will hear their passionate appeal to help to stem this flood by giving themselves to this work wholly and entirely, and so bring to an end this deluge of misery?

Mr. SIDNEY SPECTOR,

THE OKLAHOMA METHODIST MANOR,
Tulsa, Okla., September 21, 1959.

U. S. Senate, Labor and Public Welfare, Subcommittee on Problems of the Aged and Aging, Senate Building, Washington, D.C.

DEAR MR. SPECTOR: Thanks for your letter. It is easy to understand the impossibility of covering the United States with a few meetings, but it does seem we missed a very large area.

Our greatest problem concerning the aged and aging in this section seems to be the unawareness on the part of the public in general that we have a problem. Even those who are nearing the fact of growing old seem to make very little if any concrete plans for such experience.

Very little has been done or is being done to care for those who need sheltered care or those who face the need for long-time nursing care. We have a small home with only 22 rooms that is supposed to serve the Methodist of Oklahoma and the city-county health departments tell me it is the only place in Tulsa County they could recommend as a desirable place for an aging person to go. We do have a 58 room, $500,000 building under construction. (This will soon be stopped by the strike.)

Inflation has caused the savings dollar of yesterday to shrink until there is great need for benevolent assistance to many deserving people. Oklahoma has a rather liberal public assistance program for the aging, but is is not adequate to care for their most meager needs and the laws are such as to make it difficult for relatives or others to supplement it up to the point of adequacy.

Social security and public assistance both should be changed so that people between 65 and 75 years of age would be encouraged to continue to earn incomes sufficient to help build up a resource for the time when they will be in need of sheltered care or nursing.

I am sure that the findings of your subcommittee will be made available to those of us who are endeavoring to stimulate interest in the problems of the aging and the aged.