History of Our Sponsors

The Sisters of the Precious Blood have their origin in Switzerland in 1834 when Maria Anna Brunner, a widowed mother of six children, treasured praying night hours of adoration in Castle Loewenberg, a seminary operated by her priest son. Soon the women who worked in the school joined her in prayer and the little community was born.

Even while raising her children, Maria Anna’s life of prayer and her love of God went far beyond the chapel and her family. It was common for Maria Anna to bake extra bread and distribute the loaves as she walked down the Swiss mountains on her way to Mass. She became known as “Mother” because the poor would be seen coming up the mountain with sacks and jugs to carry home the bread and milk shared by her. She was also Godmother to many of the local children. Maria Anna’s love of prayer, the Eucharist and her outreach to the people who were needy and poor was contagious.

The Sisters have always stood with the poor and the marginalized in our world. First entrusted with the task of working alongside German immigrants in Western Ohio, the Sisters soon found their reach and their influence extending to the whole state of Ohio especially elementary, secondary and higher education, the care of orphans, service in seminaries and Bishops’ residences and responding to other unmet needs of the time.

The Sisters soon spread across the United States focusing a great deal of their energies in education, parish and social ministries. In the early 1950s the Sisters extended their service and spirituality to Chile and in the 1980s they reached into Central America and the country of Guatemala.

The charism and mission of the Sisters of the Precious Blood is still vibrant and resolute in purpose today, continuing through spirituality, prayer and ministry to bring “the redeeming love of Jesus to a broken and fractured world.”