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Sisters celebrate anniversary
Long-standing religious order marks 175th jubilee
By Ambria Hammel, The Catholic Sun
November 1, 2007
One of the oldest congregations of women religious in the United States is turning 175 and 11 Phoenix sisters are planning a yearlong local celebration.
The Sisters of Charity of the Blessed Virgin Mary will begin their jubilee year Nov. 1 by renewing their vows and celebrating a private Mass with students at Xavier College Preparatory where seven of them serve.
The sisters, known as the BVMs, work largely in education. Teaching was always a priority for these holy women who once taught in a Phoenix motel in their pioneer days, according to Sr. Lynn Winsor, vice principal of Xavier.
Sr. Joan Fitzgerald, Xavier’s principal, said the order’s greatest accomplishment is its continued commitment to the fine arts.
“That really added such a dimension to the education community,” she said. Xavier opened a performing arts center in 2002, allowing the fine arts program to blossom and requiring 16 additional teachers.
Pioneering women
A desire to teach first gathered the sisters in Dublin, Ireland. That’s where Mary Frances Clarke and four others opened a school for girls in order to expand generational literacy among the poor. A Catholic missionary priest soon asked them to teach Irish immigrants in Philadelphia.
They came to America and found Fr. Terence Donaghoe, who agreed to rent a building for their school.
He encouraged them to form a society to strengthen their commitment and expand their ministry by attracting others into the order. They privately took the vows of poverty, chastity and obedience in 1833.
The bishop of Dubuque, Iowa, which covered most of the upper Midwest, met the sisters 10 years later and asked for their help with education. He recognized the sisters — who then numbered 19 — as an official Church organization. That allowed them to publicly take their vows and be known as the Sisters of Charity of the Blessed Virgin Mary.
The order grew and the sisters spread out west. Phoenix Catholics who graduated from a Midwestern college founded by the sisters wanted the sisters to open an elementary school for their children.
The sisters “indicated that they would be happy to staff a grade school if 100 students enrolled,” according to the St. Francis Xavier School Web site. Parishioners went door-to-door recruiting students.
They met their quota and five sisters — known as the “Phoenician Quints” — opened St. Francis Xavier School in 1936.
Enrollment doubled the following year. The sisters also opened St. Agnes School in 1940 and St. Matthew School in 1943.
That same year, Xavier began serving St. Francis Xavier graduates, Sr. Lynn said. Three years later, hundreds of children were turned away due to a lack of space.
The sisters founded their last diocesan school at Our Lady of Mount Carmel in Tempe in 1945. They served in two other diocesan schools already established.
“The love for the BVMs in this diocese, I think, is unbelievably wonderful,” Sr. Lynn said. The sisters once relied on parishioners to take them grocery shopping and run other errands because nuns didn’t begin driving until the 1960s.
Today, the 600 Sisters of Charity of the Blessed Virgin Mary minister in 46 dioceses in 23 states. They also serve in three foreign countries.
Nearly 5,000 women have entered the order in its 175-year history and it continues to thrive.
The Motherhouse will show off its recent renovations during its jubilee event next summer. Similarly, the sisters in Phoenix will show off their new convent when it opens next year.
They won’t forget their roots, though.
The original crest of the Sisters of Charity of the Blessed Virgin Mary will be in the convent’s tile floor and the windows will show their progression west.
A gold cross will take up the center and depict the Mississippi River running through it. Lilies, the community’s flower, will be on one side while cactus blossoms, one for each school founded by the sisters, will stand tall on the other.
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