A history of Hospitality

Almost a century and a half ago, the then priest Benedict Menni founded the Congregation of the Sisters Hospitallers of the Sacred Heart of Jesus together with María Josefa Recio and María Angustias Giménez in Ciempozuelos, Spain.

Knowledge about mental illness was scarce in those times, and those who suffered from it were discarded by society, abandoned to their own fate.

St. Benedict, Josefa and María Angustias knew that two things were necessary: charity, to accompany the pain and suffering of people with mental illnesses, and science, to study each case and attend to it professionally.

Thus, the first sisters of the Congregation embodied the feminine face of hospitality and, since then, their generous dedication, and that of all their collaborators and volunteers, has spread this work of the Holy Spirit throughout Europe, America, Africa and Asia.

143 years after our foundation, we are preparing to celebrate our XXII General Chapter, to renew our hospitaller mission following the example of the mercy of Jesus and the call of St. Benedict Menni which is perpetuated in us.