The beginning of the Missionary Sisters of the Precious Blood starts in a very adventurous way in 1885 in South Africa near the port city of Durban.
The Austrian Trappist monk Franz Pfanner, who lived in Germany in a strictly contemplative and secluded Trappist monastery "Mariawald" in the Eifel, founded a Trappist monastery in Banja Luka and was now to become the abbot for this monastery. But, as so often in the history of religious communities, it happened quite differently.
Instead of becoming abbot, he moved with a small group of monks to South Africa to build a Trappist monastery at the request of the bishop there. As silent monks they were to cultivate the land and exemplify the faith. In 1882 he founded the mission station "Mariannhill" (Maria-Anna-Hill) in South Africa.
Franz Pfanner was a man with an eye for the needs of his surroundings. And he soon realized that it needed women who take care of the issues and problems of the people,
who do not live a silent life behind monastery walls, but are involved in charitable and social work.
The importance of teaching, catechesis and craft training became clear to him. It was a great concern of him to support children and adults equally, regardless of skin colour, race and religion - even at that time to the annoyance of the colonial government!
He saw a special necessity in the education and promotion of girls and women.
In 1885 he called women - initially as missionary helpers - from Germany to Africa. This was the beginning of the community of the Mariannhill Missionary Sisters of the Precious Blood.
Mother Paula Emunds, a woman of the "first hour", had a significant influence on the community, because she led the community from an early age and implemented the visions of Abbot Franz Pfanner with feminine intuition. According to the explicit wish of the founder, the sisters were to be there for the missions.
With the name "Missionary Sisters of the Precious Blood" he gave them the mandate to live in a friendly and human way the redeeming love of Christ in everyday life and to give with their lives a message of joy, hope and reconciliation.
This conviction shaped Abbot Francis Pfanner, as well as the fast-growing young sisters' community. Thus, first in South Africa and then also in Europe more and more stations were established.
At present there are about 735 sisters in more than 95 houses worldwide. We live and work in many countries in Africa, in North America, Canada, Papua New Guinea, Germany, Denmark, Italy and the Netherlands, Austria, Portugal, Korea, Indonesia and the Philippines.
As missionaries, wherever we are, we strive to make visible the love of God, which we were allowed to experience concretely and from which we live, e.g. in the educational-pedagogical field, in the social and charitable sector, at home and in agriculture,
in the manifold forms of pastoral care, in the artistic and handicraft field or in raising missionary awareness.