While surfing the web yesterday, I came upon the website of the Sisters of St. Joseph of St. Augustine, Florida, who provide a great resource for prayer, using a form of the “Maxims of Perfection”, a core document pertaining to the spirituality of the Sisters of St. Joseph. They were written in the 17th century, in a literary style that might seem a bit out of step with modern sensibilities. Still, they are a great resource for prayer and meditation, not only for my sisters and me, but for anyone seeking to deepen her/his relationship with God. This website provides with each maxim, a selection of related scripture passages as well as some reflection questions. Here’s an excerpt from their website, along with a link to the website.
The Maxims that appear on our website are addressed to laypersons and religious who seek a life with God. They were first published in 1657. Father Jean-Pierre Medaille, SJ, who, with the six original Sisters, founded the Sisters of St. Joseph on October 15, 1650, selected one hundred of the maxims for the Sisters as a brief “resume” of the spirit of the Institute.
Maxims – Sisters of St. Joseph – St. Augustine
If you are interested in the original “Maxims of Perfection” as translated by the Toronto CSJs, they may be found here. I actually prefer to pray with this original form, although the translation is somewhat different than the one I am used to. The one with which I’m familiar came out a U.S. research team that spent a long time in France researching the history and origins of the congregation, but I have not found its full translation online. I’m sure some of our sisters know much more than I about the origins of both translations…
Thank you Sister Sandy for providing these wonderful sources of reflection and meditation.
Thank you for sharing the site. There is so much richness in the maxims. 🙂 I find much food for prayer and thought in them.
You are welcome, both of you…the real thanks go to those who made them available online.
It is a great place to sit and reflect for a few minutes at some point during the day.
Thany you, Sr. Sandy.
I could be way off on this, but the original maxims look like they are more oriented toward everyone no matter their life path, whereas the ones on the Sisters of St. Joseph look more like they’re geared toward sisters. For some reason reading through that reminded me of the movie “Brides of Christ” and their scenes on their Chapter of Faults. Some of those maxims seem a little harsh (#10, yikes), but overall they’re pretty neat 🙂
At one time, I had the same reaction as Annie to the maxims, until my novice director explained that the language was the literary style of the day. I would guess that Medaille would have used different language had he written these in the 21st century.
Just a question, Sister…would a novice director be what they used to call the mistress of novices? I know some of the terminology has been changed and I’m not up to snuff. 😛
Different communities have different names for their formation ministers… Novice director and mistress of novices are different names for the same position. Our senior sisters talk about their novice mistresses, while those of us who entered later had novice directors.
Greetings from India.
Is there a website where I can find all the Maxims together in one place?
You may find these maxims in ” http://WWW.international research team 1975-maxims translation”
All the best from Sr Leena Rose