SSS Grapevine
A Publication of the Province of Saint Ann
Congregation of the Blessed Sacrament
January 8, 2025 – 2025.1
To celebrate the special 125th anniversary of the SSS’s presence in the United States, the parish of our first foundation, Église Saint Jean Baptiste, kicked off the yearlong celebration on January 6, 2025. The day chosen to begin the commemoration is also on this very day Saint Peter Julian Eymard started the Congregation’s first exposition of the Blessed Sacrament on January 6, 1857.
The pastor and our USA Province provincial treasurer, Father John Kamas SSS, framed the occasion as a chance for the Congregation of Notre Dame (CND) sisters and us to celebrate our 125-yearold collaboration in administering the parish of Saint Jean Baptiste. Having both religious institutes host the day provided the opportunity for our staff, Associates of the Blessed Sacrament, and its lay partners gather and celebrate the remarkable history of our Eucharistic mission in New York. From this “mother house”, the province of Saint Ann, the many foundations in the USA, Australia, the Philippines, Great Britain and Ireland, Vietnam, and Uganda took root. With the Shrine of Saint Ann at this parish, the devotion and well-being of the province easily placed under her patronage helped our order thrive!
Auxiliary Bishop Edmund Whalen (Manhattan) presided and preached at the Mass with hundreds gathered in the historic church. He reminded us in his homily, as we used the Epiphany readings that we were the Magi: the three represented through the SSS, CND, and the parishioners attached to the religious congregations. We are all seekers, going to the Christ-child, experiencing the love of Christ, and needing to go into the world to keep Christ's mission alive. He praised and thanked the “magi” for continuing to adore Christ and live that adoration through faithful service.
CND Province Leader, Sister Maryanne Foley, Bishop Edmund Whalen and Father Lane
CND Provincial Leader Sister Maryanne Foley, CND gave remarks after communion on the significance of the SSS and CND’s collaboration, especially with the school that was once a co-ed elementary and high school. Many of our vocations for both orders came from this parish, including the three current religious in NYC (besides Father Kamas, Fathers Bernard Camiré SSS, and James Hayes SSS), whose seeds of Eucharistic vocation sprung from Saint Jean’s. Sister Maryanne said that the founder of the CND’s, Marguerite Bourgeoys, named Sister of the Blessed Sacrament, and Saint Eymard were delighted in the heavens this evening for gathering to celebrate our mission collaboration. The CNDs came to the parish in 1886 and welcomed the SSS in 1900 with ice cream!
USA Provincial Father John Thomas Lane SSS, after expressing gratitude to Bishop Whalen, Father Kamas and the local community, Sister Foley, the CNDs, and the reception team, shared a brief history: The Blessed Sacrament Community came to this country from Montreal, Canada with eight religious. On January 18, 1900, the third Archbishop of New York, Michael Augustine Corrigan (+1902), sent the invitation to welcome our religious society here to this French-Canadian parish on the Upper East Side of Manhattan amid the Gilded Age.
Blessed Sacrament Father Louis Estèvenon, SSS (+1912 in Italy as the 6th General Superior) and Brother Patrick Welsh, SSS (+1913) came first to lay the groundwork on June 6, 1900. Archbishop Corrigan accepted the proposal to begin an Eymardian house in New York and, on September 22, 1900, gave this French-Canadian parish of Église Saint Jean Baptiste to the Congregation of the Blessed Sacrament.
Father Lane gave some info from the SSS Montréal house diary, including one interesting item: Miss Eliza Cummins, who started the People’s Eucharistic League after the first USA Eucharistic Congress in Washington DC, October 2-3, 1895, welcomed the Fathers and Brothers of the Blessed Sacrament to New York and gave $50,000 to the SSS to begin the project. This would be equivalent to $13.2 million today! We are so grateful for her gift to start our foundation because of this woman’s Eucharistic vision for the country! And the generosity has continued for 125 years! We are so grateful for our ministry partners, supporters, sustainers, and generous benefactors who sustained us then and now and will sustain us into the future. We thank you for your generous support.
We began in this country as an “international” community that is, French and Canadians coming to America. Now, our province is growing in this direction again, with associates and sisters, deacons, brothers, and ordained priests coming from all over the earth to serve in the current American Province. Just as the church is developing internationality and our nation has always been about that, so is the face of the Congregation of the Blessed Sacrament in this 125th year and for the future.
We start our jubilee celebrations here in NYC, where it all began with the torch of the Statue of Liberty nearby. We came to an immigrant neighborhood to share the Eymardian dream of placing the world on fire with the Eucharist. That flame still burns in our hearts, regardless of age or years of service.
May the Holy Spirit continue to ignite us, send us vocations both religious and lay, to join in the Eymardian family, and continue to burn brightly with a Eucharistic zeal that makes all of Jesus Christ in the Eucharist known to the world. May this year bear fruit now and for the next 125 years of service to the church of the United States of America. As Saint Peter Julian Eymard would say, “May thy Eucharistic kingdom come”.
Our SSS Canadian representative, Father Ghislain Cossette SSS, did not make the journey to represent our ties to “our mother province” due to the cancellation of his flight. Besides this, the grand reception recalled many wonderful memories and hopes for the future. The overwhelming joy captured a wonderful evening of gratitude and hope for the future. May God’s Eucharistic mission continue from this mother church of the Province of Saint Ann.
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