Courtney McGrailThe year is 1841, the date, August 23. On the pier in Kingstown (Dun Laoghaire) stands a group of Loreto nuns waving off seven young women in their 20s, dressed in the habit of the Loreto Sisters and accompanied by five postulants. These 12 are embarking on a journey destined for Calcutta, India. Their journey will end on December 30 as ‘the Scotia’ sails up the Hooghly River into the Bay of Bengal. For most, it is a final parting from family, home and country.
What inspired such madness? Where was the source of such courage and faith? What sustained them in the years that followed in the arrival in a very different culture where they were welcomed as ‘Priestesses’, the death of some of their members in the first years, the setting up of schools and orphanages, journeys up rivers to places not accessible by road? When some died of cholera others were ready to come out and replace them. Formed to ‘Find God in all things’ and to take Christ as their model and guide, the inner fire must have burned very strongly indeed.
Towards our full potential
Today we hear a lot about opening doors. The door of Mercy is a central focus for the celebration of the Holy Year of Mercy. Pope Francis speaks also of the need for hope in a world of rapid change. In his Apostolic Exhortation The Joy of the Gospel he says “let us not allow ourselves to be robbed of hope” (86).
This year Loreto Sisters celebrate 175 years of offering hope to people of different cultures, backgrounds and creeds. This was done through an education which is faith filled, positive, holistic and aimed at helping people develop their full potential and also through other works in response to the needs of people and circumstances of the time.
Their story begins with Mary Ward, a young Englishwoman. She saw the lack of opportunity being given to women, especially the lack of educational facilities, and went beyond all boundaries of her time and culture to right this wrong.
She and her followers established schools on the Continent and in England. These offered an education in the liberal arts and formation for Christian living. Mary grew up after the Reformation when to be Catholic meant that your life was in danger and in a family which worked and suffered for the preservation of the Catholic Faith. Care of Faith remained central to all she did.
In 1821 a young Irishwoman in her twenties, Teresa Ball, who had been prepared for the purpose by Mary Ward’s Sisters came back to Dublin to open a school “like the one in York”.
At her death 40 years later she had established 37 Loreto Houses in three different continents! Wherever they went there was a unity of purpose and of core values which have been handed down through the years. Loreto schools aim to form people of Faith, of truth, of sincerity, seeking justice and freedom, formed in creative and critical thinking in joyful service for the greater Glory of God. Inclusivity and celebration of diversity are hallmarks of a Loreto education.
To trace the story of this amazing expansion brings us on a journey of amazing courage, vibrancy and faith. Teresa Ball sent each successive group of missionaries, in response to an appeal from the local Church, with the words: “Go set the world on fire with the love of God”.
The first foundation outside Ireland was in India at the request of the Bishop of Calcutta. Schools were needed as was care of the many orphans left by parents who died of diseases for which there was no cure at the time. Not only did the sisters provide for these needs but they also founded two groups of the Daughters of St Anne, one to work in Bengali-speaking villages and another for Hindi medium.
One cannot omit the Missionaries of Charity, now famous all over the world, founded by St (Mother) Teresa of Calcutta who, for over 20 years, worked in India as a Loreto Sister.
Mauritius was next in 1845 when eight sisters between the ages of 25 and 30, answering a desperate plea for help, boarded “the Reaper a rough but solid cargo boat” and began a four month journey to an island rich in diversity of cultures and religions but greatly in need of good schools. Boarding, day and free schools were opened for children of all races and soon an orphanage in Port Louis.
An appeal from Toronto, Canada was answered by the sending of five sisters all in their 20s. These had no one to meet them on arrival because the inviting bishop was busy with victims of a fever which swept the city and from which he and three of the nuns died soon after. Undaunted, the remaining sisters opened schools and were joined by others who volunteered from Ireland. They soon became leaders in the field of education. The first free and boarding schools soon developed a reputation which led to invitations from other parishes. By 1880 their fame had spread to the United States and the first convent in Joliet, Illinois was opened.
The difficulties in communication across the Atlantic and the differences of educational practices in Canada and the United States suggested that a separate leadership would best serve the needs of the times. The North American Branch was created in 1881 and remained until 2003 when the reunion of the Irish and North American Branches brought these two groups together again as Loreto.
It was poverty that drew the sisters to England in 1851. Both the immigrants from the Irish famine (38,000 according to the census of 1851) and the victims of the ravages of the Industrial Revolution lived in terrible conditions and child labour was rife.
Canon O’Toole of Manchester believed education would help them escape this terrible poverty and begged Teresa Ball to send sisters there. Later foundations were made in other parts of England and in Scotland and Wales. After her death the spirit lives on.
In 1875, Australia was a nation in the making and with wide horizons. Bishop O’Connor of Ballarat sent a request and ten sisters went to answer the need for Catholic education. Accounts of the 95 day journey aboard the Somersetshire include the outbreak of a fire on board the vessel as they crossed the equator.
In addition to the first school which they called ‘Mary’s Mount’ the sisters taught in a parish school and by 1877 had built St Joseph’s Primary. Many others were to follow right across the Continent. In more recent years, the mission was to extend to Vietnam and East Timor.
By ox wagon
The final part of the journey to South Africa in 1878 was made by ox wagon over the Drakensberg Mountains to Pretoria. Three sisters and two candidates left Ireland not from Rathfarnham but from Navan which was under the authority of the local bishop. From the beginning efforts to be true to the ideal of inclusive education were made very difficult by restrictive race laws.
Not only were many schools opened, work in townships pioneered but also a Congregation of the Immaculate Heart of Mary founded and nurtured.
Spain in 1888 revived a dream of Teresa Ball who had actually opened a school in Cadiz in 1851. It had to close five years later in a time of political upheaval. The school in Gibraltar, opened as part of the Irish Province in 1845, had many Spanish pupils and a request was made for schools in Spain itself. On the feast of St Michael 1889 the first pupils arrived in Castilleja de la Questa. This was the first of many schools and as the Spanish Province grew it established outreaches to Morocco and to Peru.
The foundation in Kenya in 1921 witnesses to a worldwide vision and a freedom to move where there is need. Although five of the first six Sisters were Irish by birth they came from different parts of the globe. Having been in Australia, Manchester, India, Gibraltar and Ireland they came together in Bombay and sailed to Mombasa to begin in this new place the work of Loreto women making a difference through education. Side by side with the first school in Msongari was an outreach to the local women with what we would now call adult education. When the husbands objected to their wives becoming too independent through learning, contact was kept up through a dispensary.
In 1981, the Spanish Province, in response to needs in Peru opened a mission there and soon became part of a Church close to the people and centred on the poor. The sisters are involved in formal and informal education, in catechesis and pastoral care. In areas where priests are few they are central to the liturgies and sacramental life of the people.
In 2003, all Loreto provinces were challenged to “recapture the spirit of Mary Ward” and reach out to bring her spirit to people in different parts of the world. Following careful discernment and planning the Loreto Sisters began foundations in the Seychelles, Ecuador, Albania, Bangladesh, Ghana, Southern Sudan, Zambia and Timor Leste.
Today, governments in most countries in which we minister take responsibility for formal education and healthcare. While we continue to keep education central and have primary and post-primary schools, adult education projects and involvement in third level institutions other needs come to the fore.
The focus is to provide opportunities for those on the margins. Alert to the needs of our time and with Mary Ward’s breadth of vision, we serve in a wide variety of ministries. Around the world you will find us serving in social service centres, shelters for the abused, trafficked and homeless, retreat and spiritual life centres, rural and urban parishes, as development workers, as prison chaplains, as home visitors, as spiritual caregivers for persons with HIV/AIDS, providing a safe environment, warm hospitality and mentoring to women in need, enabling them to take control of their lives and move on into a better future, in advocacy and lobbying at local and national levels and at the United Nations, and wherever contemporary needs arise.
In all of these we see the attempts not just to deal with the immediate need but to change the structures which create these needs.
The opening of an office at the United Nations in 2003 created opportunity to join with other peoples and nations to advocate for justice and human rights.
We have traced the journey of many Irish women to distant lands where they entered into the lives of the people and while giving of themselves were enriched by the cultures of their adopted country. Today, in Ireland, many of the sisters are reaching the age of retirement and few are joining. The flow is no longer from Ireland to distant lands. The torch is being passed on to younger people of the countries to which they went.
In Africa, India, Vietnam and Bangladesh many young women are joining Loreto and indeed in the other countries too people of the country carry on the work of the foreign missionaries and, with a greater understanding of their own people, reach out in new ways. Here in Ireland our Alumni and collaborators say “Loreto will never die while we are here”. Volunteers, captured by the Loreto spirit join the sisters in many places and in some there is formal commitment as Associates.
Back in 1612, Mary Ward believed “women can and should provide something more than ordinary”. This is a challenge to all of us. Was there ever a greater challenge than inclusion and celebration of difference in the multi-faith, multi-cultural society of today? The same energy, goodness and self-giving of those early sisters is evident in people now. We search for appropriate ways to enter through new doors so that in spite of negative influences surrounding us, we too may light fires and seek together to live Gospel values and open doors of hope and possibility.
To conclude we return to ‘The Joy of the Gospel’: “Challenges exist to be overcome! Let us be realists, but without losing our joy, our boldness and our hope-filled commitment. Let us not allow ourselves be robbed of missionary vigour!” (109).