Our History

“During that time we were constantly discerning our decision with serenity in front of the Blessed Sacrament, with spiritual readings, during the course of our daily duties – offering everything we did without hesitation and with as much generosity and love as we were able to our Good Lord.“

As is consistently the case in these situations, love for authentic Catholicism flourished. A number of the novices and aspirants experienced a whole new and different understanding of and love for their vocations as a result. Soon they, too, were attending Ignatian retreats.

Rebuild My Church

Over time, the sisters were forced to choose between remaining within their community without the expression of traditional Franciscan Catholicism they had discovered, or striking out on their own, under the protection of Our Lord, Our Blessed Mother, St. Francis, St. Joseph, and all the Saints and establishing a new Franciscan religious community embracing Catholic Tradition. After much prayer and discernment, they chose to take the difficult step of establishing a new Franciscan community devoted to traditional Franciscan Catholic liturgy and spirituality. The result of this decision was the establishment of the Franciscan Convent of St. Joseph in Guatemala.

Birth of a New Congregation

The morning of November 30th, 2012 was a cold and frosty morning in the highland of western Guatemala as the sisters departed their former congregation with much sorrow and great confidence in Divine Providence. Much like the disciples on the road to Emmaus they felt their hearts burning within them. They remain sincerely thankful to their former congregation which cradled their vocation.

Mother Superior, at around two in the morning, went from cradle to cradle saying goodbye to the children they loved for she knew they might never see any of them again. At four in the morning, the sisters left in silence with the blessing of their chaplain. Amid this very difficult departure, the congregation of Franciscan Sisters of the Hearts of Jesus and Mary was born.

Divine Providence Greets the New Community

The sisters were very tired as they began their journey, having slept little in the previous days and none on the previous evening. Apart from this, they were quite hungry. They made the decision to stop at a restaurant along the highway. Having ordered a meal, Mother realized that she may not have enough money to cover the bill. When it came time to pay the waiter said to them, “Do not worry, another person has covered the cost of your breakfast.

“May God be blessed for this first gift to our community. Since that time He has not abandoned us for a moment”.

On December 12 of that year, they were clothed in the traditional Franciscan habit for women.

The Franciscan Convent of St. Joseph

After many years of searching and praying for an adequate property, they were presented with the opportunity to investigate the purchase of a rather large property. After much discernment, with no funds to speak of and many prayers to Our Lord of Esquipulas, during a visit to this property, the Sisters noted an image of Saint Joseph belonging to the owners. They asked if they could borrow this image, promising to return it along with the down payment. To this image, the sisters made a novena in which they took turns every hour praying to Saint Joseph. Immediately after this novena, a generous benefactor provided them with the funds for the down payment on the property. It seemed only proper to name the Convent after St. Joseph. The purchase of the property was effected on the Feast of St. Joseph, March 19, 2018. On the 8th of June of that same year, the Convent was blessed and the Blessed Sacrament was reserved in their chapel.

The property now known as the Franciscan Convent of St. Joseph was formerly a hardware factory. The total area of the convent property itself is 25,000 square meters (slightly over six acres). It had been out of business for many years and all of the machinery removed. The large building that was once the factory remains, and will undergo multiple phases of retrofitting and remodeling.

Apart from this building, the former owners had erected their own home on the property, just a stone’s throw from the factory building. That home remained in good general condition and now serves as the cloister for the religious.  The former factory building will be utilized to house a good number of disabled children as well as therapeutic clinics, areas for immediate medical care, recreational spaces for the children, and a spacious chapel for the nuns, residents, and visitors of the facility.