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    St. Arnold Janssen - Founder of The Society of The Divine Word

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    Evan Jordan
    Arnold Janssen was born in Germany in 1837 and grew up in a devout Catholic family. He became a priest and founded the Society of the Divine Word in 1875 with only three candidates and little money. The society grew rapidly under his guidance to include over 1,500 members working in missions around the world by the time of his death in 1909. He was canonized as a saint by the Catholic Church in 2003 in recognition of his work founding missionary religious organizations that have over 10,000 members today.

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    St. Arnold Janssen - Founder of The Society of The Divine Word

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    Evan Jordan
    33 views2 pages
    Arnold Janssen was born in Germany in 1837 and grew up in a devout Catholic family. He became a priest and founded the Society of the Divine Word in 1875 with only three candidates and little money. The society grew rapidly under his guidance to include over 1,500 members working in missions around the world by the time of his death in 1909. He was canonized as a saint by the Catholic Church in 2003 in recognition of his work founding missionary religious organizations that have over 10,000 members today.

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    Arnold Janssen was born in Germany in 1837 and grew up in a devout Catholic family. He became a priest and founded the Society of the Divine Word in 1875 with only three candidates and little money. The society grew rapidly under his guidance to include over 1,500 members working in missions around the world by the time of his death in 1909. He was canonized as a saint by the Catholic Church in 2003 in recognition of his work founding missionary religious organizations that have over 10,000 members today.

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    33 views2 pages

    St. Arnold Janssen - Founder of The Society of The Divine Word

    Uploaded by

    Evan Jordan
    Arnold Janssen was born in Germany in 1837 and grew up in a devout Catholic family. He became a priest and founded the Society of the Divine Word in 1875 with only three candidates and little money. The society grew rapidly under his guidance to include over 1,500 members working in missions around the world by the time of his death in 1909. He was canonized as a saint by the Catholic Church in 2003 in recognition of his work founding missionary religious organizations that have over 10,000 members today.

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    of 2

    St.

    Arnold Janssen Founder of the Society of the Divine Word


    On October 5, 2003, at the Vatican before some 30,000 people, Pope John Paul II declared
    Arnold Janssen a Saint of the Church. What was so special about this man that he would be so
    honored? One might say he was really a very ordinary man, a simple priest, but one who
    followed his vocation in a totally committed and extraordinary way.
    St. Arnold Janssen - Founder of the Society of the Divine WordArnold Janssen was the second
    son born to Gerhard and Anna Katharina Janssen. He grew up in a devoted Catholic family of
    seven children, five brothers and two sisters. His father was a freight hauler, a man of deep faith
    who educated his children to think beyond their own limited world-view and be aware of the
    missionary needs of the Church around the world. Their family prayer included a nightly rosary
    which was followed by the Prologue of St. Johns Gospel: In the beginning was the Word and
    the Word was with God and the Word was God.
    As a young man, Arnold developed an early interest in the natural sciences. He went on to study
    in this field and qualified to be a high school teacher. Having completed these studies, he went
    on to study theology and was ordained a diocesan priest for the Diocese of Muenster on August
    15, 1861. His first assignment was to teach in a secondary school in Bocholt.
    After twelve years at his post, he became restless and wanted to devote himself more toward
    issues of the Universal Church. He first did this through the printed word with his Little
    Messenger of the Sacred Heart with its focus on news of the missions and what Germans might
    do to promote mission activities. This quickly became a popular monthly magazine amongst
    Catholics. Arnold became more acutely aware that there was no German mission-sending
    religious society and wanted to see that need filled. This is where his deep faith in Divine
    Providence showed itself. He was determined to found a German mission-sending society at a
    time when anti-Catholic laws in Germany forbade such religious schools. At one point, Arnold
    went with some Ursuline nuns to visit J. A. Paredis, Bishop of Roermond, to discuss his plans.
    The Bishops comment after the visit was, He wants to build a mission house and he is
    penniless. Hes either a fool or a saint.
    On Sept. 8, 1875, with only three candidates, little money, and a run-down inn which he was able
    to purchase just across the German border in Steyl, Holland, Arnold founded his mission
    seminary and a religious order, to be named The Society of the Divine Word, honoring that
    special devotion he had developed in his childhood with those evening recitations of St. Johns
    Prologue with his family. The beginning was difficult, with his first few candidates leaving, but
    eventually, more and more candidates came, joined and stayed. He steadily guided this new
    Society for 34 years and quickly expanded it to include religious brothers. Arnold also helped cofound the Holy Spirit Missionary Sisters (SSpS) and the Holy Spirit Sisters of Perpetual
    Adoration (SSpSAP).

    Arnolds dream proceeded with a speed that probably surprised even him. At his death in 1909,
    the missionary societies that he had founded had over 1,500 priests, brothers, Missionary and
    Adoration Sisters working in the missions in China, Italy, Argentina, Austria, Brazil, Papua New
    Guinea, U.S., Chile, Japan and the Philippines. Today those societies number over ten-thousand
    members in nearly 70 countries. The dream of a determined ordinary priest has been realized.

    November 5, 1837 Arnold Janssen is born in Goch, Germany.

    1849 to 1861 A time of studies at the minor seminary at Gaesdonck, mathematics and
    natural sciences at Bonn University, theological studies at Mnster.

    August 15, 1861 Ordained a priest for the Mnster Diocese.

    1861 to 1873 High school teacher of mathematics and natural sciences (Bocholt).

    1869 Director of the Apostleship of Prayer in Mnster.

    1873 to 1875 Chaplain for the Ursulin sisters in Kempen.

    January 1874 Begins publishing the magazine, Little Messenger of the Sacred Heart.

    September 8, 1875 Opens the Mission seminary in Steyl, Netherlands.

    1877 Opens the Mission House for retreats, thus promoting the lay retreat movement.

    March 2, 1879 Sends the first two SVD missionaries to China, Fr. John B. Anzer, SVD,
    and Fr. Joseph Freinademetz, SVD.

    December 8, 1889 Co-founds the Missionary Sisters of the Holy Spirit.

    December 1896 Co-founds the cloistered sisters, Missionary Sisters Servants of the
    Holy Spirit of Perpetual Adoration.

    1889 to 1909 Period of expansion of missionary work to Argentina (1889); Togo


    (1892); Brazil (1895); New Guinea (1896); Chile (1900); U.S.A. (1900); Japan (1906);
    Paraguay (1908); Philippines (1909).

    January 15, 1909 Arnold Janssen dies at Steyl, Netherlands.

    October 19, 1975 Arnold Janssen is beatified in Rome by Pope Paul VI.

    October 5, 2003 Arnold Janssen is canonized by Pope John Paul II.

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