Mass in Westminster Cathedral to celebrate

Bar Convent Sisters and All Saints School attend

More than 2,300 people attended a service at Westminster Cathedral recently when the Most Rev Vincent Nichols, Archbishop of Westminster, conducted a Celebratory Mass in honour of Mary Ward and the 400th Jubilee of the foundation of the Congregation of Jesus and the Institute of the Blessed Virgin Mary (Loreto Sisters). In December 2009, Pope Benedict XVI published a Decree recognising the ‘heroic virtue’ demonstrated by Mary Ward (1585-1645) and thereby conferring on her the title ‘Venerable’*.

Among the guests were Madame Paulette Leporcq, Deputy Mayor of St Omer, site of the original foundation, Fr Léon Hamain, Chancellor of the Diocese of Arras, Mr Duncan Sandys, Mayor of Westminster, Baroness Hogg, the Anglican Bishops of St Asaph and St Edmundsbury and Ipswich and Rev Dr Stuart Burgess, the Government’s Rural Advocate and former President of the Methodist Conference.

Click here to see the full set of photos courtesy of catholicchurch.org.uk

Sisters from the Bar Convent, York and staff and past pupils of All Saints School attended the Mass. The Bar Convent is the oldest religious house in England dating from 1686. All Saints School and community were founded in 1686.

During the offertory, pupils of Loreto College St Alban’s, in historical costume, enacted a pageant of women through the ages, bringing their gifts and talents, led by Mary Ward in pilgrim dress.

Sr Gemma Simmonds of the Congregation of Jesus says ‘Mary Ward lived in a time of terrible religious conflict in Britain. We began our jubilee celebrations for her in York Minster, as guests of the Anglican community. We are delighted to repay the warm hospitality we received then by inviting the Archbishop of Canterbury to be with us at Westminster Cathedral as we pay tribute to this unique woman of vision and faith. We are particularly happy that this is happening now when Mary Ward has formally reached the first stage towards canonisation. She is one of Britain’s best kept secrets, a saint for the third millennium and someone we should be proud of as a great pioneer for women’.

During his homily, Archbishop Vincent Nichols said Mary Ward ‘was truly a woman of Europe’. He spoke of the shoes in which she walked three times to Rome to plead her cause with the Pope, saying ‘You can tell a good deal about a woman from her shoes. Hers were tough and durable, in soft leather which fitted her individuality’. He also spoke of Mary’s three spiritual journeys: to discern what God wanted her to do, to live closely to God – her motto was ‘Go close to him’, and to journey within the Church. He pointed out that despite great suffering and persecution, she always retained a deep love and loyalty for the Church.

Dr Rowan Williams also paid tribute to Mary Ward. In his address, he said ‘Mary Ward’s stubborn courage in following her calling through the most difficult of circumstances has, over the centuries, made a massive difference to the lives of countless people throughout the world, especially women.

At a time when so many pressures combined to encourage the Church to retrench and to avoid risks, she kept a door open for a gospel-based vision for the renewal of religious life. Critical, loyal, brave and imaginative, she is a figure for all Christians to celebrate with gratitude.

Speaking of her ‘Eucharistic simplicity’, Dr Williams said Mary Ward’s influence on the Church was like that of the Desert Fathers, St Francis of Assisi, and Teresa of Avila and even some Reformation figures disapproved of by the Catholic Church, who helped to bring renewal.

Her ‘verity, sincerity and transparency’ had been seen as dangerous at the time. Mary Ward had actually tried to visit the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Williams noted. He was out but she scratched her signature on a window pane of Lambeth Palace.

Dr Williams said that as a ‘divided and confused Church’ we must pray for renewed simplicity. ‘The more we worry about shortages of vocations to religious life, the less we will be renewed.’ He concluded – to loud applause.

About Mary Ward

Mary Ward was a Yorkshire woman who, at a time of severe repression of Roman Catholics in England, felt called by God to found a congregation of religious sisters on the model of the Jesuits (Society of Jesus). Her vision was for a non-enclosed order of religious sisters who might serve their faith actively as educators and missionaries across Europe, set free from the restrictions of monastic life as the Jesuits were. In an era when women were considered intellectually and morally incapable of doing good for themselves, let alone for others, Mary soon came into conflict with the Papal authorities.

Having founded a community of sisters in St Omer in Flanders in 1609, Mary was initially allowed to open schools across Europe without restriction and continued to secretly assist persecuted Catholics in Protestant England. Her order of ‘English Ladies’ considered itself directly answerable to the Pope without other intervening male authority. But when Mary travelled to Rome to seek Papal recognition for her congregation of so-called ‘Jesuitesses’, Pope Urban VIII ruled against her refusal of enclosure and imprisoned her as a heretic.

Despite centuries of struggle in a Church and a world unprepared for Mary Ward’s pioneering vision, her sisters today are fulfilling her dream of apostolic service and opportunities for women all over the world.

The cause for Mary Ward’s canonisation was opened in 1929. The historical research was accepted by the Congregation for the Causes of Saints in 1995. Theologians completed their investigations in 2009 and recommended unanimously that her cause should go forward.

Mary Ward’s foundation exists today worldwide under the names Congregation of Jesus and Institute of the Blessed Virgin Mary (Loreto Sisters) with around 3,000 members. The sisters are active in 44 countries across five continents. The Mass in Westminster Cathedral on 23rd January 2010 marks the conclusion of their year-long celebration of the 400th Jubilee of Mary Ward.

Mary Ward – Dangerous Visionary

A documentary on Mary Ward was launched in Dublin on Thursday 21st January by Sr Marian Moriarty, IBVM, General Superior of the Loreto Sisters.

Mary Ward – Dangerous Visionary tells the story of this 17th century religious and educational pioneer through re-enactments of seminal moments in her life and this is interspersed with historical commentary. The documentary crew also filmed in South Sudan and Canada where Mary Ward’s Sisters are working at the coalface today.
More information: www.marywarddocumentary.com

* The process of canonisation is in three stages.
Initially the title of ‘Venerable’ is conferred, followed by ‘Blessed’ (the state of beatification).
The final stage is ‘canonisation’ when Sainthood is conferred.
The last individuals to be canonised in England were amongst the ’40 Martyrs of England and Wales’ who were canonized by Pope Paul VI in 1970.
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