Revisiting the Legacy of Mary Josephine Rogers Claudette LaVerdiere

ary Josephine Rogers, who became Mother Mary and asked her to “do something for the Catholic girls.”6 Mollie’s MJoseph, founder of the Sisters, was one response was to start a mission club, which evolved into what is of the most extraordinary women in mission of the twentieth now the Newman Club at Smith. Her search for materials led her century. I refer the readers of the International Bulletin of to Father James Anthony Walsh, director of the Boston office of Research to the article on Mary Josephine Rogers the Society for the Propagation of the Faith. He encouraged her, by Barbara Hendricks published in this Legacy series in 1997.1 sent her materials, and at her first visit to his office, in December Hendricks discussed the life and experiences that led Mary Rogers 1906, introduced her to his vision to inspire Catholics with regard to establish the first American Roman Catholic congregation of to the church’s mission. In the , Catholics were one women dedicated to foreign mission. To provide context for some hundred years behind their Protestant peers in foreign mission of the more recently produced material based on the writings of endeavor. Walsh felt it was high time Catholics joined their Euro- Mother Mary , I begin this article with a brief overview pean counterparts in spreading the Word of God. He showed her of the founder’s life. Three specific components of her spiritual the first draft of the mission magazine he was starting, The Field legacy are then considered: her sense of the presence of God, the Afar.7 Walsh was also thinking of opening a seminary to train bold initiatives she took in mission, and her promotion of just young men as missionary priests. His vision had an electrifying relationships in community. effect on Mollie. Thereafter she spent summers and school breaks Mary Josephine, known as Mollie in her family, was born at his office, translating letters from French missioners for the in 1882 in Boston, , the fourth of eight children. magazine and doing various editorial tasks. Her paternal grandfather, Patrick Henry, had emigrated from Mollie gave up the idea of a master’s degree after two years and was determined that his family would fit into Boston at Smith and transferred to teach in a Boston city school in order society, overcoming the prejudices to which Irish Catholics were to devote more of her time to Walsh’s mission magazine. The year so often subjected in the nineteenth century.2 To this end the was 1908, the very year that Pius X declared the United States Rogers children, as well as the subsequent Rogers generations, no longer mission territory. The in America was were educated in public rather than Catholic schools. At home, deemed ready and capable of caring for its own people. The World’s Mollie’s parents reinforced the faith their children learned weekly Parliament of Religions, held in Chicago in 1893, had generated in Sunday School. They also promoted an understanding of the much excitement about world mission, and Catholic-sponsored church’s foreign missions through the Societies for the Propaga- mission conferences kept the flame alive. In 1910 Fathers Walsh tion of the Faith and the Holy Childhood. and Price, a priest from North Carolina, planned the groundwork Mollie’s early childhood acquaintance with foreign missions for the foreign-mission seminary they were cofounding. On June was little more than a distant memory when in 1901 she enrolled 29, 1911, the Catholic Foreign Mission Society of America—the at Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts.3 The Student Maryknoll Fathers and Brothers—was launched. Volunteer Movement at Smith was, however, very strong, and In the meantime, three other women besides Mollie had it served to reawaken Mollie’s awareness of a world beyond her come forward to offer their services to Father Walsh’s mission own.4 In the spring semester of her junior year, she offered one of effort. They were Mary Louise Wholean, a graduate of Wellesley eight sessions of the Smith College mission study classes, probably College, Wellesley, Massachusetts; Sara Sullivan, secretary to the the first ever at Smith on . Then, in early June, dean at Harvard Medical School; and Mary Dwyer, a Boston she witnessed a “mission-sending” of five of the young Protestant businesswoman who contributed much of the machinery that women who were graduating that month and would be leaving was needed in publishing. In following years, women continued for China soon after—“the college’s best” in Mollie’s estimation.5 to come, all gathering around Mollie, the natural leader among In that graced moment, she was overwhelmed with the sense of them. Inevitably, as the women worked on The Field Afar in an having received so much and given so little. She walked straight atmosphere steeped in the church’s mission, they began to dream to her parish church just off the campus and pledged her life to about someday being missioners themselves. It had occurred to the mission of the church, having no idea how she would follow Mollie while she was still a student at Smith that if Protestant through on this commitment. women had a place in foreign missions, then why not also Catholic After graduation, Mollie returned to Smith as a demonstrator laywomen? For the women of Maryknoll, however, it was not to in zoology, intending also to begin work on a master’s degree. be that simple. Their dedicated life notwithstanding, they had no She was unaware that the teachers then were very concerned official standing as a group within the church, and therefore no about their Catholic students, who remained peripheral to the stability or security. Because of their lack of official status, young college’s social and religious activities. One of the teachers, Eliza- women were discouraged from joining them.8 beth Deering Hanscom, approached Mollie early in the semester Mollie and the others realized that, to have a future in the mission field of the Catholic Church, they would have to establish Claudette LaVerdiere, M.M., originally from Maine, is themselves as a religious congregation. While they knew little a teacher of Scripture with experience in East Africa and about religious life, they knew that they wanted to be Sisters Myanmar. She served as president of her Congregation who could adapt to all kinds of situations and cultures. The (1991–96), following which she obtained a Licentiate Dominican Sisters of Sinsinawa, Wisconsin, who were entrusted in Sacred Theology (STL) from Weston Jesuit School with the final formation of the Maryknoll women, recognized the of Theology, Cambridge, Massachusetts. value of adaptability for missioners and purposefully fostered —[email protected] its development in the fledgling community.9 On February 14, 1920, thirty-five women welcomed the

212 International Bulletin of Missionary Research, Vol. 36, No. 4 news from Archbishop Patrick Joseph Hayes of that have I loved you, O beauty ever ancient, ever new . . . always they were now constituted as a bona fide religious congregation, you were with me, and I was not with you.”12 with Mollie, now Mother Mary Joseph, as the official head of the Mother Mary Joseph’s own growth in the awareness of the group. From 1920 until her death, on October 9, 1955, Mother presence of God took shape in the midst of a very busy life. Mary Joseph spent her time and energy in the ongoing spiritual She constantly searched for clearer ways to explain how Sisters formation of the Maryknoll Sisters, who by 1955 numbered 1,160, could remain in the presence of God at all times, because some had opened missions in twenty countries, and were serving racial Sisters did not agree that to do so was possible. Some insisted minorities in six cities in the United States. there was work and there was prayer, but not both at the same time, to which she countered: “In our active religious life we don’t have time for sustained and long prayer. We must cultivate union with God at every possible moment.”13 Opportunities for that cultivation included walking from one office to another or waiting for something. It could happen anywhere and anytime. Mother Mary Joseph held firmly that it was not a question of doing the impossible but of maintaining a spirit of recollection so that, when free moments came, God’s loving presence would spring to mind spontaneously. “And that,” she insisted, “is all we mean by habitual recollection. It is very possible! It ought to characterize every Maryknoll Sister.”14 She enjoined the Sisters to cultivate the presence of God for several reasons. Most basically, it was their means of responding to the intimacy of God’s total involvement with them. And she had another motive. In her mission visitations she had witnessed the appalling loneliness that beset many a missioner in China. She cautioned the Sisters: “If you have not cultivated the habit of speaking with Christ, you will find yourself frightened and alone in a great desert. So learn to listen to him. There is no need for us to feel discouraged, because God is with us.”15 She also had a deep conviction that, if the Sisters lived in God’s presence, people would “see” God in them.16 Mother Mary Joseph often used the term “cultivate.” It was one of her signature words, and its frequent use suggests that she saw living in the presence of God as not automatic. It is not that God ever leaves us but that we are often oblivious of the Holy Mystery that enfolds us. She recognized that the Sisters would need to be active in their encounter with God’s presence, knowing that God would do the work, but not without them. She never suggested that it would be easy to balance a life of Mother Mary Joseph Rogers prayer with one of extreme activity. But if the Sisters learned to cultivate God’s presence, as she told them, “Our humility will deepen, our charity towards one another will glow more warmly, From this brief overview of Mother Mary Joseph’s life and our religious obligations will take on a new flavor, and we will path to Maryknoll, we turn to some aspects of the richness of find all things working together for good. For God is love, and her spiritual legacy. where love is, there is God—there is peace.”17 Mother Mary Joseph understood that, through the cultiva- The Presence of God tion of God’s loving presence, the Sisters would begin to see one another as God sees them. This faith conviction inflamed her The most prominent feature of the endowment Mother Mary heart, and she passed it on liberally to her Sisters of Maryknoll. Joseph left to her Sisters of Maryknoll is the cultivation of the presence of God, which the Sisters identify as the taproot of her Bold Risks in Mission mentoring of the congregation. The presence of God, Mother Mary Joseph taught them, was the solid ground on which their Mother Mary Joseph’s legacy is found also in her willingness to relationships and all their mission activities rested. Her insight take bold risks without fearing failure or censure. Three instances into the presence of God first appears in her letter to the Sisters serve here to illustrate her actions when she knew in her heart of November 1, 1921.10 From then on, it is everywhere in her the right thing to do and the way to go. conferences. In 1929, when she was still fairly young in religious The first example concerns innovation. In the late 1920s and life, she said, “We know that God is everywhere: mountain tops, 1930s, Mother Mary Joseph’s views resonated with the desire of depths of the earth and sea. God is in us and the marvel of it all is Maryknoll Father Francis Ford to have the Sisters go out two by that we realize it so little. If we did realize it, we would be over- two into the Chinese villages.18 Interestingly, Ford had formed whelmed . . . [by] the Godhead dwelling within us. Unfortunately, this idea after observing Mother Mary Joseph when she made however, we go to the other extreme and we go about from day her first visitation to China, in the early 1920s. Ford noticed that, to day as though God were not with us.”11 Mother Mary Joseph even though Mary Joseph had no Chinese language, the Chinese here unwittingly evokes Augustine’s rapturous words, “Late women readily took to her smile as she accompanied the Sisters

October 2012 213 in their ministries. His observation led him to hope that, in a that she went ahead anyway, establishing it in 1932, preferring country where contact between the sexes was strictly monitored, to risk failure rather than not to try. the Sisters would be able to go directly into the villages to mingle The Contemplative Community was an adaptation of what with the women at the hearth of the home. And Mother Mary she had witnessed in in 1914 among the Sisters of the Joseph concurred.19 Company of Mary: while some Sisters went out to minister to the Catholic Sisters had never worked in this way before. Prior poor, others kept a constant vigil in prayer on their behalf. From to Vatican II they were expected to be in their convents after that moment the idea never left her that, within the Maryknoll school or clinic hours. It was a great day for Ford and Mother congregation, a community of Sisters would be set apart for Mary Joseph when Cardinal Pietro Fumasoni-Biondi, prefect prayer as a support and an encouragement for all members of of the Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith in Rome, Maryknoll. Most especially, they were to be a living and constant wrote his approval of the method: “Let us hope that this work reminder to all Maryknollers of the essential role of prayer in their may grow and that God may bless it with abundant fruit.”20 It is lives. Today, though the Contemplative Community is small, it instructive, however, that Mother Mary Joseph, who was always continues to fulfill its vibrant role par excellence. deeply respectful of church authority, had not waited for approval to prepare more young Sisters for apostolic work in China. The Justice in Relationships driving force for her was the mission of Jesus. To truly go out in that spirit, the Maryknoll Sisters needed to be willing to do Mother Mary Joseph’s spiritual legacy also encompasses her whatever was necessary, under any conditions. emphasis on justice in relationships. The virtual blending of The second instance of Mother Mary Joseph’s dauntless nations that now characterizes the Maryknoll Sisters congregation foresight is seen in the formation of the Maryknoll Sisters, where was only in its incipient stages during her lifetime. When she she intentionally and deliberately introduced the cultivation of spoke about diversity in community, her predominant concern individuality. “We have tried from the beginning to cultivate was with the differences that arose from the Sisters’ various a spirit which is extremely difficult and which for a long time backgrounds and individual dispositions. She knew it was hard might have been misunderstood even by those nearest to us.”21 work to live together in unity, and she also knew that it was not She realized that her ideas of what a Sister could be ran counter the Sisters’ own doing. In 1930 she told the congregation, “God to the generally accepted conventions for women religious at is the motive power . . . the source and the object of our love. If it the time, but she was forming a community for mission, and were not for this, do you think for one moment that we could live the resilience needed superseded the expectations of religious together in harmony and peace? We know that we could not.”25 propriety. Speaking on the Maryknoll spirit, and based on the In 1932 Mother Mary Joseph told the Sisters that they were experience of her mission visitations in China, she maintained: not bound by ties of natural affection.26 How then were they “We expect to go out and live amongst those who will be suspi- bound? “Our Charity,” she said, “is the index of our love of God cious of us, who will not like us, who will respect us only when and souls. What we fail to give our Sisters, we shall fail to give to we have proven our virtue, our sincerity and our usefulness to thirsting souls outside.”27 She rightly perceived that if the Sisters them. . . . [We need to] make the advances [not waiting for them were not managing to treat one another justly and lovingly, it was to come to us]. . . . For this we need all of our individuality, all very doubtful that they were accomplishing anything in mission. our generosity . . . all the things which the good God has given She enjoined the Sisters to cultivate the sterling qualities of to us.”22 “courage, fearless honesty, transcending charity, gentle courtesy, As noted above, Mother Mary Joseph did not attend a Catholic tender love of God and all God’s creatures because of our love school. As a consequence, she had no tapes playing in her head of God.”28 These were the dispositions that would sustain just telling her what a Sister should be or how she should act. She relationships in community. knew only that she wanted the Sisters to be refined and also Among the qualities Mother Mary Joseph encouraged in the natural, with no affectations, so that the Chinese women would Sisters, “fearless honesty” stands out as particularly challeng- be attracted to them in order to come to learn about the Christ ing. To be honest is to be sincere, frank, and open in all ways these women did not know. She insisted that the spirit she was with one another. Today, we call this transparency. How does fostering was “an attempt to keep our individuality, casting out one speak and act with fearless honesty? Mother Mary Joseph what is objectionable in it, finding what is good and beautiful stressed that the Sisters would be able to approach one another . . . and supernaturalizing all this, using it, not for ourselves, not with candor only if they really loved one another. The challenge for any honor or [personal] distinction . . . [but only] for God’s is not simply to tell the truth but to do so with compassion, or as honor.”23 St. Paul would have it, “speaking the truth in love” (Eph. 4:15). Mother Mary Joseph expected the Sisters to “supernatural- ize” their gifts by keeping the word “others” in mind. “Think I close by recalling the simple way in which Mollie Rogers came always of others and you won’t have time to think of yourself; to accept the daunting task of founding the first American con- thus you will discover one of the missioner’s necessary char- gregation of women religious for foreign mission. With few, if acteristics—generosity. If . . . you do not try to overcome [your any, guidelines from other people or organizations, she prayed, selfishness], you will be a failure in religious life and an appalling consulted, and constantly learned through observation and trial failure as a missioner! There is no place in the mission field for and error. The circumstances for mission are altogether different the ungenerous soul.”24 now, but in her day she planted seeds that enabled the Sisters to The third illustration of Mother Mary Joseph’s resoluteness respond to the needs of their time. In order that they might thrive concerns the foundation of the Maryknoll Contemplative Com- in community and in mission, she urged them to cultivate the munity. When she proposed this special foundation, people said presence of God. She bestowed on them the gifts of her intrepid that it would not work, that it was not possible to have a contem- spirit, her expansiveness of mind, and her heart, entreating them plative community alongside an active branch. She wisely took not only to love one another but indeed to see one another as counsel but was so convinced of the value of such a community God sees them.

214 International Bulletin of Missionary Research, Vol. 36, No. 4 Selected Bibliography

Works by Mary Josephine Rogers (Mother Mary Joseph *———. “The Spiritual Heritage of Mother Mary Joseph.” 1993–96. Rogers) MMA. Seven essays that explore the spirituality of Mother Mary All of the writings of Mary Josephine Rogers (Mother Mary Joseph Joseph: (1) “Sources of Our Heritage,” (2) “Call to Mission,” (3) Rogers) are located in the Mother Mary Joseph Papers in the Maryknoll “Gifts of the Spirit,” (4) “Union with God: Love and Prayer,” (5) Mission Archives, Maryknoll, New York (hereinafter MMA). Union with God: The Language of Love,” (6) “The Maryknoll Spirit,” and (7) “Community, Individuality, and Obedience.” Works About Mary Josephine Rogers (Mother Mary Joseph Kennedy, Camilla. To the Uttermost Parts of the Earth: The Spirit and Rogers) Charism of Mary Josephine Rogers. Maryknoll, N.Y.: Maryknoll The following works include those appearing in the bibliography of the Sisters, 1987. 1997 Legacy article by Barbara Hendricks, as well as additional works, *LaVerdiere, Claudette. On the Threshold of the Future: The Life and marked with an asterisk. Spirituality of Mother Mary Joseph Rogers, Founder of the Maryknoll Sisters. Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis Books, 2011. *Callahan, Frank Rogers. “Rogers Family Story.” Draft, December 6, Lernoux, Penny. Hearts on Fire: The Story of the Maryknoll Sisters. Mary- 1999. MMA. knoll, N.Y.: Orbis Books, 1993; 2nd ed., 2011. Chatfield, Joan, M.M. “First Choice: Mission; The Maryknoll Sisters, Lyons, Jeanne Marie. Maryknoll’s First Lady: The Life of Mother Mary 1912–1975.” Ph.D. diss., Graduate Theological Union, Berkeley, Joseph, Foundress of the Maryknoll Sisters. New York: Dodd, Mead, Calif., 1983. 1964. *Dries, Angelyn. “The Foreign Mission Impulse of the American *Robert, Dana L. American Women in Mission: A Social History of Their Catholic Church, 1893–1925.” International Bulletin of Missionary Thought and Practice. Macon, Ga.: Mercer Univ. Press, 1996. Research 15, no. 2 (April 1991): 61–66. Schintz, Mary Ann. “An Investigation of the Modernizing Role of the ———. “The Whole Way into the Wilderness: The Foreign Mission Maryknoll Sisters in China.” Ph.D. diss., Univ. of Wisconsin– Impulse of the American Catholic Church, 1893–1925.” Ph.D. diss., Madison, 1978. Graduate Theological Union, Berkeley, Calif., 1989. *Tolan, Eunice, and Incarnata Farrelly. “Maryknoll Distaff: History of Hendricks, Barbara. “The Legacy of Mary Josephine Rogers.” International the Maryknoll Sisters, 1912–1961.” MMA. Bulletin of Missionary Research 21, no. 2 (April 1997): 72–80. Wiest, Jean-Paul. Maryknoll in China: A History, 1918–1955. Armonk, *———. “The Life of Mother Mary Joseph Rogers.” 2003. MMA. N.Y.: M. E. Sharpe, 1988. Unpublished manuscript. *Wholean, Mary Louise. “Teresian Diaries.” 5 vols. 1912–16. MMA.

Notes 1. Barbara Hendricks, “The Legacy of Mary Josephine Rogers,” 12. Augustine, Confessions, book 10, chap. 27. International Bulletin of Missionary Research 21, no. 2 (1997): 13. Mother Mary Joseph Rogers, “The Presence of God,” April 25, 1929, 72–80, available at www.internationalbulletin.org/system/ box 10, folder 2. files/1997-02-072-hendricks.pdf. 14. Mother Mary Joseph Rogers, “Holy Eucharist,” September 30, 1940, 2. Patrick assumed the name Henry because he thought it would be box 10, folder 8. politically advantageous to be associated with such a famous patriot. 15. Mother Mary Joseph Rogers, “Silence,” August 3, 1930, box 10, See Frank Rogers Callahan, “The Rogers Family Story,” December folder 3. 6, 1999, Maryknoll Mission Archives, Maryknoll, N.Y. (henceforth 16. Mother Mary Joseph Rogers, “On the Cloister,” July 1931, box 13b, MMA). folder 1. 3. Mother Mary Joseph Rogers, “Mission Interest” (conference paper, 17. Mother Mary Joseph Rogers, Chapter Conference for Superiors, Seattle, Wash. [early 1940s?]), Mother Mary Joseph Rogers Papers, December 1941, box 11, folder 1. MMA, box 12, folder 7. Subsequent items by Mother Mary Joseph 18. Francis X. Ford was the first student to arrive at Maryknoll in 1912 Rogers, all in MMA, show box and folder numbers only. and, after his , in 1918, was in the first group to leave for 4. The Student Volunteer Movement came into being after a talk given China. He became bishop of Kaying in 1935 and ultimately died in in 1886 by Arthur Tappan Pierson (1837–1911) at the Mount Hermon a Communist prison in 1952. summer conference in Northfield, Mass. See Dana L. Robert, “The 19. Jean-Paul Wiest, Maryknoll in China (Armonk, N.Y.: M. E. Sharpe, Legacy of Arthur Tappan Pierson,” International Bulletin of Missionary 1988), p. 103. Research 8, no. 3 (1984): 122. 20. Ibid., pp. 103–4. 5. Mother Mary Joseph Rogers, “The Student Volunteers,” box 12, 21. Mother Mary Joseph Rogers, “The Maryknoll Spirit,” August 4, folder 1. 1940, box 10, folder 8. 6. Mother Mary Joseph Rogers, foreword to Eunice Tolan and Incarnata 22. Mother Mary Joseph Rogers, “The Maryknoll Spirit,” 1930, box 10, Farrelly, “Maryknoll Distaff: History of the Maryknoll Sisters, folder 3. 1912–1961,” p. 2, box 12, folder 8. 23. Mother Mary Joseph Rogers, “The Maryknoll Spirit,” August 4, 7. The title was changed to Maryknoll in January 1957, the magazine’s 1940, box 10, folder 8. fiftieth anniversary year. 24. Mother Mary Joseph Rogers, “The Maryknoll Spirit,” August 3, 8. Mother Mary Joseph Rogers, “Foundation Day,” February 14, 1940, 1930, box 10, folder 5. box 10, folder 8. 25. Mother Mary Joseph Rogers, “Community Life,” July 31, 1930, box 9. The Dominican Sisters assumed this task at the request of Father 10, folder 3. John T. McNicholas, a Dominican Father and good friend of Father 26. Mother Mary Joseph Rogers, “Fraternal Charity,” September 29, James Anthony Walsh. 1932, box 10, folder 6. 10. Mother Mary Joseph Rogers, letter, “My dear children,” November 27. Mother Mary Joseph Rogers, letter to “My dear Sisters,” Christmas 1, 1921, box 3, folder 1. 1941, box 3, folder 5. 11. Mother Mary Joseph Rogers, “Presence of God,” August 23, 1929, 28. Mother Mary Joseph Rogers, “Meditation—Eve of Foundation box 10, folder 2. Day,” February 13, 1933, box 10, folder 7.

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