Historical Background

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CFSOP Brief  Historical Background

 

 

The Compassionate Franciscan Sisters of the Poor (CFSOP) is a new dynamic international religious community of dedicated Missionary Sisters of the Roman Catholic Church, who, inspired by the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ and the life and charism of their Patron, St. Francis of Assisi, humbly and freely offer their works of mercy and compassion, to the least of our poor Brothers and Sisters, in striving to save souls, inspire hearts, and uplift lives as they spread God’s Divine Love and the Spirit of Hope.

 

Jointly founded in Jamaica and the Philippines in 1996 by the Very Rev. Fr. Richard Ho Lung, M.O.P. and Rev. Mother Joan Clare Chin Loy, OSF, the CFSOP have established mission centers for the abandoned homeless poor, mentally and physically challenged children, orphans, the elderly, the destitute, HIV victims and struggling poor children, women and families in Jamaica, Haiti and the Philippines. Presently, we are seeking to fully develop and expand our mission works and to more systematically mobilize support for our ministries, in the spreading of our charism of mercy and compassionate service to the poorest of the poor for the love of Jesus. 

 

In 1996, the Founder of the Missionaries of the Poor, Very Rev. Fr. Richard Ho Lung, a Jamaican-Chinese Jesuit and former professor at Boston College and lecturer at the University of the West Indies, in collaboration with Mother Joan Clare Chin Loy, OSF,  (a member of the Franciscan Sisters of Allegany headquartered in Buffalo, upstate New York, and the newly retired Principal of Mt. Alvernia High School, Montego Bay, Jamaica after 45 years in education), came together to form this vibrant new religious community of faith-filled deeply-motivated sisters, originally called the "Missionaries of the Poor, Sisters."  In 2009, the congregation came to be reconstituted as the "Compassionate Franciscan Sisters of the Poor (CFSOP)," with full autonomy under Mother Joan Clare’s sole leadership.

 

In the Philippines beginning from 1996, mission centers were built and developed by the Sisters in Dayangdang, Bagumbayan, Balatas and Pacol in Naga City, Bicol Province, where the Sisters currently administer Queen of Peace Children's Home, an outstanding nationally and internationally-recognized home and adoption center for over 50 orphans and mentally and physically challenged children, as well as a nursery school, a nutrition feeding program for 55 children, and an outreach ministry for over 250 poor families. 

 

Responding to the needs of poor squatters scavenging in city garbage dumps throughout the Philippines, the Compassionate Sisters have constructed centers where they worked in the Balatas garbage dump-site, the Concepcion Grande Squatter settlement and other depressed areas of Naga City.  They also operate the Queen of Hope Day Care and Learning Center in the Catmon garbage dump-site in Malabon, Manila. This center is also located right adjoining the very garbage-dump itself, where the Sisters live and provide care and community outreach services to the children and families living with them in the neighboring basura garbage dumps.

 

Over the years, the CFSOP Sisters have also mobilized and coordinated extensive aid programs to poor schools, barangays, hospitals and colleges, as well as major emergency relief supplies for thousands of typhoon victims, such as in Typhoon Reming and Typhoon Milenio in 2006.  In their efforts to serve poor ghetto-communities, the Sisters seek to implement their specific Christian-based H.E.L.P. outreach model of community development among the poor.

 

In Montego Bay, Jamaica, the CFSOP Sisters have founded a mission center where they operate a city-clinic for the neglected poor families of Montego Bay and the surrounding rural areas, as well as a Hospice Care Center for HIV-afflicted residents and elderly dying patients, and a pastoral care ministry within the Blessed Sacrament Cathedral parish community.

 

In Viloux in the Diocese of Les Cayes, Haiti, the CFSOP Sisters for the past 12 years have initiated an extensive basic nutrition and education center for over 150 children whom they feed each day, along with many outreach support programs to over 400 families whom they faithfully serve.  This region, ravaged by numerous hurricanes, natural disasters, earthquakes and a cholera outbreak, cries out for mercy and urgent assistance. Our CFSOP convents and centers have become safe harbors and sure refuge for the many poor and struggling mothers, families and children who flock to our centers seeking some measure of God's tender love and mercy in facing the many needs and struggles they encounter.

 

CFSOP Sisters plan to expand in the USA by building future convents and opening local Women Crisis Centers and other CFSOP H.E.L.P. outreach programs for the homeless destitute poor, shut-ins and struggling mothers, such as soup kitchens and material aid and support centers for mothers and children, as well as parish-based home visitation programs for the elderly, the sick and the dying.

 

In Viloux, through the establishment of the Queen of Mercy Academy and Child Development and Nutrition Cente, we look forward to educating, feeding and caring for many of the destitute suffering under-nourished children in the neighbouring 68 villages who are in dire need of our help. better support the growth and the expansion of our ministries among the neighboring poor communities in fulfillment of the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ, and to more fully implement our community H.E.L.P. (HOLY, HOLISTIC, HEALTH, EDUCATION, EVANGELIZATION, LIVELIHOOD, PASTORAL PROGRAMS FOR THE POOR) outreach development model.

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Since June 19, 2021, the CFSOP Sisters have been welcomed and accepted for a new mission into the Archdiocese of Nairobi by the then Apostolic Administrator, Bishop David Kamau, to establish their House of Formation and to humbly serve the least of our poorest Brothers and Sisters living in the ghetto community of Chokaa, Nairobi, according to their religious charism and works of mercy. 

 

On December 7, 2022, the CFSOP joyfully received the full permanent canonical acceptance of their CFSOP community’s ministry, presence and mission in the Archdiocese of Nairobi, from the newly appointed Metropolitan Archbishop of Nairobi, His Grace, Most Rev. Philip A. Anyolo. Our CFSOP Sisters now therefore ever more earnestly continue to faithfully establish our Queen of Hope Formation House and Novitiate for our young Kenyan Formandi in Chokaa, and our Queen of Hope Child Care and Nutrition Centre and our mission outreach programs for the evangelization and care of our poor children, destitute mothers and struggling families, living in the ghetto community of Chokaa, East Nairobi, Kenya.  To God be the glory!  

 

Inspired by their ardent desire to serve the Lord with gladness and continue to encircle the Lord's poor with His divine love, the CFSOP faithfully continue to evangelize and spread their works of mercy, always seeking to be as compassionate as Jesus.

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