Mother Margaret Mary Healy Murphy is seen in this undated photo. Mother Murphy in 1893 founded the Sisters of the Holy Spirit and Mary Immaculate, the first order of women religious in the state of Texas. The congregation was started after Mother Murphy, a native of Ireland, spent years helping the poor and serving African Americans and Mexican Americans as a laywoman. Photo: CNS/courtesy Archdiocese of San Antonio. Pioneering Mother Murphy shared God’s joy with the black community in Texas, writes Ruadhán Jones “Blacks in San Antonio were largely ignored both by the state and the Catholic Church until a wealthy, Irish-born, 54-year-old widow, Margaret Mary Healy-Murphy, moved to San Antonio in 1887 and heeded the call of the bishops in Baltimore for…
Ruadhán Jones