Origin and mission

Mathilde Otto, the founder of the Elisabeth Sisters community, was born on December 18, 1875 in Oberweier near Lahr. She was able to call herself “the home of truly good parents,” who gave her daughter a solid upbringing in keeping with her social status and the customs of the time.

The little girl soon began to show “the qualities that we admire in her ancestors: … great receptivity to religion and a tender compassion for others.” These qualities were cultivated and encouraged in the religious spirit that prevailed in the family.

Mathilde learned early on to orient her life according to the Holy Scriptures and to see and accept God's will in all her guidance and guidance. Even at a young age she was convinced that her life belonged exclusively to God. Based on this inner realization, she took a vow of perpetual virginity at the age of 21.

In the years before the First World War, Mathilde moved to Freiburg and soon began working in the city's flourishing Elisabeth Conferences. Leading Catholics in Freiburg, especially the founder of the German Caritas Association, Lorenz Werthmann, became aware of her. Werthmann entrusted her with the establishment and management of the "Home Care and Family Welfare" department at the German Caritas Association.

For years, all of Mathilde's efforts to realize her consecration to God in a monastic community had failed. Her charitable work now drew her attention to the family's particular needs. She saw in this the call and will of God to help her through people, generous women who would support such a work for which there were hardly any role models.

Through these experiences and by constantly listening to God's will, Mathilde slowly began to develop a plan to found her own community of sisters with a strong religious commitment to serve the family.

She was supported in her plans by the then cathedral prebendary Josef Oechsler, who promised to take over the spiritual leadership of such a community.

On Christmas Day 1925, the “Sisterhood of St. Elisabeth” – as it was then called – was officially founded.

In February 1929, a long-held wish of the founder came true: the St. Elisabeth maternity home was opened on the premises of the mother house of the St. Elisabeth Sisterhood in Freiburg.

As a spiritual foundation and orientation, Mother Mathilde gave the new community the words of Jesus Christ: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. And by this I will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another (John 13:34).

“Obeying this word, every Elisabeth sister makes it the purpose and goal of her entire will and aspiration: to fill her soul with this great, all-encompassing love of the Redeemer and to use this love to serve her brothers and sisters…”

“But because such a great, selfless devotion is only possible and can be persistently carried out if the soul has a strong, never-failing drive, the watchword of the sisterhood is: The will of God!...”

In her service to families, the Elisabeth Sister should not only try to control external distress, but should also be concerned with “renewing everything in the family in Christ”.

The patroness of the sisterhood should above all be Mary: the example of the Virgin Mother, who “carried the God of love within her, hastened over the mountains to serve selflessly”, should be constantly contemplated by the Elizabethan sisters and thereby try to grow in the same willingness.

Mother Mathilde chose Saint Elizabeth of Thuringia as her second patron, who gave the community its name, as this community had grown out of the work of the Elizabeth Conferences.

Although the community of sisters was based on the three evangelical counsels of poverty, virginity and obedience, it was not a religious order, but rather a "unio pia", a "pious association". Its tasks, some of which were completely new, included midwifery and maternity care. However, these activities were not permitted for nuns at the time. There was no way to apply to the Congregation for Religious in Rome for recognition as a religious order.

For the sake of their task, Mother Mathilde and the sisters humbly renounced the honor of being recognized as nuns.

On August 20, 1933, barely eight years after its founding, the founder died.

Only a few months earlier, on January 30, 1933, the Third Reich had begun.