Bishop celebrates Mass at St. Joseph’s Home for the Elderly

TOTOWA  Bishop Kevin J. Sweeney celebrated a Mass on Aug. 30 for the Little Sisters of the Poor at St. Joseph’s Home for the Elderly here to commemorate the feast day of their founder, St. Jeanne Jugan. The Little Sisters operate the home and continue St. Jeanne Jugan’s mission: the care of the poor, sick, elderly, and dying, with compassion — more than 150 years since the founding of their order.

Concelebrating the Mass in St. Jeanne Jugan Chapel at St. Joseph’s were Msgr. John Hart, pastor of Assumption Parish, Morristown; director of the clergy personnel office, and chair of the Presbyteral Council, whose mother, Vivian, is a resident, and Bishop Dominic Marconi, a retired auxiliary bishop of the Newark Archdiocese, who also is a resident.

St. Jeanne Jugan founded the order in 1839 in France to care for the poor and elderly in the streets of cities and towns. Later, the congregation had spread to nine countries in Europe. In 1868, seven sisters left the motherhouse in France for the U.S. In four years, they established 13 homes. St. Joseph’s Home for the Elderly in Totowa was dedicated in 1976.