INSPIRATION BEHIND
LIFE-GIVING ARCHITECTURE
An overview of the people, ideas, and inventions that inspire our life-giving mission to support the human condition through architecture.
Baby Hatches in Rome
In 12th-century Rome, fishermen reported finding infants that had been abandoned or drowned by desperate mothers in the Tiber River.
In order to rescue newborn lives, Pope Innocent III ordered the construction of the first known “foundling wheel,” in which the mother could place her baby and ring a bell for someone to come and take care of the child. This concept spread throughout many parts of the world, and many similar safe havens are still used to this day.
Modern baby hatches, also known as baby boxes, have newer safety features, such as sensors and climate control for added security.
They are often attached to hospitals and are set up so that a mother with an unwanted pregnancy can anonymously entrust her baby to a nurse, who will take care of the baby while putting him or her up for adoption.
“Be praised, my Lord, for our Sister Mother Earth,
Who sustains and rules us
And produces varied fruits with many-colored flowers and plants.
Praise and bless my Lord
And give Him thanks and serve Him with great humility.”
St. Francis, "Canticle of the Creatures"
St. Francis & Ecology
Saint Francis of Assisi lived in the 12th-century in Italy. He renounced riches and a high status to imitate the life of Jesus in poverty, self-denial, and evangelization, and he founded the Franciscan Order. He is widely known as the patron saint of ecology because of his care and reverence for God’s creation, especially seen in his "Canticle of the Creatures."
This view of creation as a gift from God provides us with a Catholic perspective on sustainability: we are responsible for taking care of the earth that God has entrusted to us. See what this means for Limine Vitae on our Services page.
St. Jeanne Jugan
St. Jeanne Jugan, or Sister Marie de la Croix, was born in poverty during the tumultuous French Revolution in the 18th century in a small town
in Brittany.
One wintry day, St. Jeanne met an elderly woman, Anne Chauvrin, who was blind and partially paralyzed. St. Jeanne took her into her home, let her sleep in her bed, and took care of her. Over time, St. Jeanne built up a cottage for the elderly poor and widows, and more women joined her in service. St. Jeanne wrote a simple religious rule and begged for alms, and her congregation became known as the Little Sisters of the Poor.
Her mission greatly expanded across Europe and overseas. By the end of the 1840s, St. Jeanne was able to establish four homes by begging for food, money, and clothing, and by 1850, over 100 women had joined.
Although she was sent into a life of obscurity for almost 30 years, she was eventually recognized as the foundress after her death, and she was canonized in 2009 by Pope Benedict XVI.
“The mission...is to offer the neediest elderly of every race and religion a home where they will be welcomed as Christ, cared for as family, and accompanied with dignity until God calls them to Himself.”
Little Sisters of the Poor
“My little ones, never forget that the poor are Our Lord; in caring for the poor say to yourself: This is for my Jesus – what a great grace!”
St. Jeanne Jugan
Little Sisters of the Poor
The Little Sisters of the Poor (LSP), founded by St. Jeanne Jugan, are a religious community of women whose mission is to serve and care for the elderly poor. The sisters take vows of poverty, chastity, obedience, and hospitality, and their schedule is built around prayer and humble service. They live in Gospel simplicity, trusting in Divine Providence, and they keep a strong family spirit of solidarity with those whom they serve.
Today, there are over 1,400 members in over 200 homes, in 31 countries, on five continents. A Third Order of the Little Sisters of the Poor exists for lay members who share the spirit of serving Christ in the elderly poor with compassion, stewardship, and reverence for the sanctity of human life.
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Sisters of Life
The Sisters of Life are a religious community who minister to mothers in crisis pregnancies to help support them and their unborn babies through prayer, conversations, and material resources. The community was formed when Cardinal John O’Connor, the archbishop of New York, issued a call to action for women to help protect human life from conception through a new religious order.
Cardinal John O'Connor wrote, “This is the charism of the Sisters of Life: to mother the mothers of the unborn; to mother the unborn; to mother all those who are frail, all of those who are vulnerable, all those who are ill, all of those who are in danger of being put to death, all those whose lives the world considers useless."
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"Our Lord says to each Sister of Life, 'Woman, behold your son. Behold your daughter.'"
John Cardinal O'Connor