JANSSEN, ARNOLD. – Founder of the Society of the Divine Word, born at Goch (Rhineland) on 5 November 1837; died at Steyl (Holland) on 15 January 1909. Ordained a priest in 1861 and a professor at the secondary school in Bocholt, he gave up the latter position in 1873 in order to devote himself more directly to souls. As diocesan director of the Apostleship of Prayer from 1866, he not only promoted its centers and provided its members with the Kleiner Herz-Jesu-Bote, but also felt impelled to found a Catholic apostolic school for Germany, modeled on those in France and Belgium, for the formation of future missionaries.
The school was opened in 1875 at Steyl, which within ten years became a truly international institute. There arose the Society of the Divine Word, which received apostolic approval in 1901. The houses multiplied rapidly, and the founder accepted several missions for his sons: Sciantung meridionale (1882), Togo (1892), New Guinea (1896), Nijgata (1907), Abra (1908); he also sent a considerable number of priests and lay brothers to the United States, Brazil, Argentina, and Chile. He also founded two women’s congregations: one of the active life, the “Servants of the Holy Spirit” (1889), to assist his missionaries in mission territories; the other contemplative, the “Servants of the Holy Spirit of Perpetual Adoration” (1896), to assist them through prayer and adoration of the Blessed Sacrament. For the dissemination of missionary publications he established a large printing press at Steyl; and he wished his members to concern themselves not only with edifying missionary literature, but also with works of a scholarly nature, produced according to rigorously scientific methods: this later yielded the valuable works of the Antropos-Institut. The cause of beatification of J. was introduced on 10 July 1942.