Divine Word Missionaries work first and foremost where the Gospel has not been preached at all or where the local Church cannot survive and grow without the help of missionaries. This missionary mandate takes us to some of the poorest and most remote areas in the world.

The needs of the local Churches where Divine Word Missionaries serve are vast and diverse. From operating large universities, colleges and seminaries, to staffing hospitals, clinics and specialized communities to care for lepers, to running trade schools and shelters for street kids, to assisting local communities in building chapels-Divine Word Missionaries serve the poorest parishes in large cities of the developing world and the most remote jungle areas in places like the Amazon or Papua New Guinea.

Founded in 1875, Divine Word Missionaries continues to be one of the few communities to show steady growth in its membership. Today more than 1,000 seminarians await their final stages of formation before ordination.

Beginning in Europe: The Society of Divine Word was founded by Saint Arnold Janssen, a German priest working in the Diocese of Muenster. While the government was expelling religious orders and repressing the growth of the Church in Germany, Saint Arnold Janssen was creating a missionary training center across the border in Steyl, Holland. The Society of the Divine Word opened it's first mission house in Steyl in 1875. Within four years the first Divine Word Missionaries were sent to China.

Twenty years later, after establishing five additional mission houses in Europe, Saint Arnold Janssen dispatched Brother Wendelin Meyer to the United States. He arrived in Hoboken, New Jersey in 1895, assigned to seek financial support for the Society burgeoning missions through sales of Divine Word publications.

Saint Arnold Janssen, SVD (1837-1909)

Arnold Janssen founded three congregations: The Society of the Divine Word, The Holy Spirit Missionary Sisters and the Holy Spirit Adoration Sisters.

Arnold Janssen was born on November 5, 1837 in the town of Goch, Germany, a town near the Dutch border. He was ordained a diocesan priest in 1861, and began his ministry as a teacher.

He began a magazine for mission awareness, The Little Messenger of the Sacred Heart. In the Messenger, he began to promote the idea of beginning a seminary to train diocesan priests for the missions.

Because political conditions in Germany were unfavorable to Catholics, Fr. Janssen purchased land in nearby Holland to begin his seminary. On September 8, 1875 St. Michael the Archangel Mission House in Steyl, Holland was dedicated. The Society of the Divine Word was born.

Within a few years of its founding, scores of seminarians, priests and brothers were preparing for missionary service at Steyl and the first two missionaries were sent to China. One, Fr. Joseph Freinademetz, was an outstanding missionary who was beatified, along with Blessed Arnold Janssen, in 1975.

In the late part of the 1800's the Society of the Divine Word experienced tremendous growth and expansion. Mission Houses were opened in Austria and Germany, more mission fields were accepted by the Society, and Fr. Janssen founded two congregations of Sisters.

December 8, 1889 marked the founding of the Sister Servants of the Holy Spirit. The Sisters, carrying the charism of the Founder, began missionary work in many of the same areas where Divine Word Missionary priests and brothers served, often building and operating schools and hospitals.

In 1896 Fr. Janssen also founded the Sister Servants of the Holy Spirit of Perpetual Adoration. The "pink Sisters", a name taken from their pink habit, also spread all over the world, performing their ministry of prayer through perpetual adoration of the Eucharist.

Today Divine Word Missionaries serve in over 50 countries and number over 5,000 members.

Arnold Janssen, SVD was canonized by Pope John Paul II on October 5, 2003.

Saint Joseph Freinademetz, SVD

Saint Joseph Freinademetz (April 15, 1852 - January 28, 1908) was a Roman Catholic priest, and, as a member of the Society of the Divine Word, was a missionary in China.
Freinademetz was born in Oies in the southern Dolomites, which was then part of Austria and now part of Italy. He studied theology in the diocesan seminary of Bressanone and was ordained priest on July 25, 1875. He was assigned to the community of San Martino di Badia, not far from his own home. During his studies and the three years in San Martino, Freinademetz always felt a calling to be a missionary. He contacted Arnold Janssen, founder of the mission house Society of the Divine Word in Steyl, Germany.

With the permission of his parents and his bishop, he moved to Steyl in August 1878, where he received training as a missionary. In March 1879 he and his confrere John Baptist Anzer boarded a ship to Hong Kong, where they stayed for two years. In 1881 they moved to the province South Shantung that they were assigned to. There were 12 million people living in this province, of which 158 had been baptized.

Freinademetz was very active in the education of Chinese laymen and priests. He wrote a catechetical manual in Chinese, which he considered a crucial part of their missionary effort.

In 1898, he was sick with laryngitis and tuberculosis, so Anzer, who had become bishop, and other priests convinced him to go to Japan to recuperate. He returned, but was not fully cured.

When his bishop had to leave China for a journey to Europe in 1907, the administration of the diocese was assigned to Freinademetz. There was an outbreak of typhus in this time, and he helped wherever he could, until he himself became infected. He returned to Taika, Japan, the diocesan seat, where he died. He was buried in Taika, at the twelfth station on the Way of the Cross.

Freinademetz and Arnold Janssen were canonized on October 5, 2003 by Pope John Paul II.