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November 19, 1978
My dear Sisters,
Greetings and salutations from LePuy! The fall is .almost ended.
I t' s been a ..time of great beauty-- colors more tinted than what we see,
in New England at lea s t , and. very much merging into the varied tones
of the terrain ·. itself .. The snow has already .been falling on the
mountains ..that ' ..c r own t he Massif Central. The mo.r ning frost is becoming
more fre quent . Soon . the massif will be .. difficul t and dangerous to
cross on ac.count· of ice , pa·tches on the .narrow.'· winding roads. Mornings
and 1 a.te afternoons are .. s ha r p and cold~ .midday can still be lovely if
the:n- is suns hine . I' m coming to admit how much for me the sun has
·
been light. Now I fi nd it warmth .
THE WORK WITH FATHER:
1. The re-vi ewe dtransl a tions of the Maxims of Perfection, Parts 1 and 2,
toge ther wi th recommended (to the Team) revisions and questions, is
a l rea dy in M
onica Flynn's hands for re-typing and circulation to the
Te am. We'll make our "final " decisions on the text after I get back
t o t he States and then in June at Villa Rosa, Erie, decide format
a nd initiate publication.

l
1

2. The four talks of Father Nepper (3 given at Orlando and 1 at Wheeling )·
;
have been considerably revised and · retranslated and will be published i
as I NSIGHTS: On Being a Sister of St . Joseph. These are "finis hed. " ·
3. The f our talks of Father Nepper (Wichita, LaGrange, Cleveland,
Canada ) have likewise been reworked, and retranslation is in process.
These will be published as INSIGHTS: On the Maxims of the Institute.
(When I r etur .n home in January sometime, I see my retyping of these
2 booklets in ·.format . for publication at the earliest possible. I 'd
like to hope that· .some., of our Sisters, individually or collectively,
might be thereby .led to. share their own insights · into one or other
of our do c uments, of some theme pursued in the documents, etc. In
oth er wo r ds, a ser ies .on our primary texts under the general title
I NSI GHTS --published .by and for the Federa tion. )
Thes e 8 talks will .be "finished" soon.

.~

4 . Father Nepper tells me he's been wo rking off and on during the past
t wo years on "similarities and contrasts" in our spirit/ spirituality
and that of Ignatius. He believes in the possibility of guided/
directed retreat around our own spirit and spirituality. W expect
e
to begin checking out the possibility together by entering into
s uc h a r e treat s i t uation ourselves in order to see what ~ e discover.
The purpose, as· I understand i , i s to see whether or not our
pr imitive texts -~ and our own r eso ancesto the spirit and spirituality-warrant a fuller search into this possibility and the e ventual
"de signing" of such retreat (s ) with perhaps the collaboration of
Team A wi th f orma t ion personne l. This r es ponds to some ongoing
questions and reques t s f irst discussed during the closing session of
the Federation Novi t i a t e Progr am a t Cohass e t af t er the Boston
Nat'onal Event. Father Ne pper a nd I might have a chance just before
I leave to take a l ook at our documents and jus tic e , i f that would be
desirable.

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TENil .t:1:

My perspectives on .availab e . materials h ere i n France f o r t h is new
research team were pess i mistic in my last letter. Now, howeve r, t hey
are becoming mo re and· mo r e optimist · Co
-1 . I have t ho r ough ly .:r:e-:-.read Acha:rd., whose . notebooks (on the period
fr om the foundation ' to t he · Revolution) . we . have on microf ilm and
print-of£ in the U.S .. Federation .. archives t hanks t o Sister Marie
Joseph, s uperior . gen eral~ . of LePU:¥-1 .. who let me b ring t hem home
for t h at purpose .in l976 o
~) Achar d, a c h aplain at the t ime of .the present cent ury, used
three majo r sources to.reconstitute our.early h isto ry:
1 ) the arch i ves ·.o £ the mo t he:rhouse. a t .. LePuy
2) the arch ives o·f t he .mo t h erhouse of . Lyon
3 ) Pon t v i anne, LaV'i'l'le· at le CarYtoh de Crapo nne , 2 vols . , 19 0 5,
LePuy.
Pontvianne was chaplai n t o t h e Poo r Cl ares here . They've
promised me t h e se t if t hey h ave an e.xtra .
If no t S iste r
Marie Joseph will le·t me t ake t he irs home t o mi crofilm for
our arch ives. ·
2 . I a m learning t h at when an archivist o r h i s t orian says to you,
here in France , "no h ing .e xistsp it was all b urn e d i n t he Revolution," y ou continue t o pursue t h is "no t h in g" and you find s ome
great stu ff . opossibly " everyth ing" , " all i' we need .
At any rate, t h ere are some reco r ds o f mo re t h a n 50 house s before
the Revol ution in t he se 3 s ources alone (LePuy , Lyon, Pontvianne )
a nd of 2 0 which came into ex istence during Francoise Eyraud's
lifetime (4 founded by Medail e).
At p resen·t I would be incl · ned to see Team B working from the
origins to the eve · of t he Revolution .
In Pon vianne wh ich I've
read with s~me care t~ certain se~tions, it seems fairly ctear
(and shows 1n Lyon and LePuy arch1ves) t h at several houses
continued uninter.ruptedly .. during t he Revolut 1on, s ome times thanks
to t h e local civil authorities; o t he rs went underground until it
was safe t o e me rge; very ve ry fe w did not survive t he Revolution.
Thus I'd be i ncl ine d t o see t he Revolut ion: be f o r e, duri ng and
after as a later res e arch. Ano t he r wa y Te am B could be very
helpful i n liberating all of. us to t he diversity of works wh ich
seems are "essential " .mean s t o our aposto late would be by o ffering us t h e "history" of certain vo cabulary i n t he documents:
· Fo r example, "h'o p i ta " Mont f e r:rand . o. it SEEMS to have been a
hospice for wi dow s and unmarrie d women of LeP uy . They pooled
certain of t he ir res.ources to live in comparative physical and
mo r al safety in a dissolute period . Later some o r phans came
there- - orph ans of LePuy . Sudden. y in 1646 a woman not of LePuy
s hows up t h e r e "maitre sse" o f hopital Mon tfe:r:rand . She's called
"l a Fra nco is e" . She is Franco ise Eyraud , the superio r of our
first Sisters in LePuy . WHAT was an h~pit al i n 17th c entury
France?
0

* Remember that the organi zat' on we call Congre gation follows the
Rev lution by a number of years .
· And is there
ro om'' , spoken o f
dispensed in ·the
ceu·tury HOUSE OF

any r elationship--and if so, what-- be t ween " t he
in our primitive Constitutions, whe re charity was
form of medicine s, soups , fu:rni tu:re and the 17th
CHARI TY? Ano·th e:r e.xamp. e.

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