January January 1 Day of Prayer for Peace Pray for peace in our hearts, our homes, our communities, our country and our world. Mary of Nazareth: God Bearer. Each of us is asked to bear the peace and love of Christ to the world. January 2 Sadie Alexander (b.1/2/1898 d.11/1/1989) Sadie Alexander was the first black woman to receive a Ph.D. in economics in the United States (1921) and the first woman to earn a law degree from the University of Pennsylvania Law School. She was the first black woman to practice law in Pennsylvania. January 3 Bella Abzug (b.7/24/1920 d.3/31/1998) Bella Abzug was a leading liberal activist and politician, especially known for her advocacy for women’s rights. She graduated from Columbia University’s law school, and became involved the antinuclear peace movement. In the 1960s, she helped organize the Women’s Strike for Peace and the National Women’s Political Caucus. Bella wanted to have a greater impact, so she ran for and won a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives from New York. As a member of congress, she continued to advocate for women’s rights and the withdrawal of troops from Vietnam. Bella Abzug left Congress in 1977, but continued to lend her efforts toward many causes, including the establishment the Women’s Environmental Development Organization. January 4 St. Elizabeth Ann Seaton (b.8/2/1774 d.1/4/1821) Elizabeth Ann Seton, S.C. was the first native-born citizen of the United States canonized by the Roman Catholic Church (September 14, 1975). She established the first Catholic girls' school in the nation in Emmitsburg, Maryland, where she also founded the first American congregation of religious sisters, the Sisters of Charity. When she was 19 years old, Elizabeth married William Seton. They experienced financial hardship, the stress of which exacerbated William’s tuberculosis. A doctor suggested that William spend time in Italy because of its favorable climate. William died while they were in Italy, and Elizabeth relied on the hospitality of a business associate. While in Italy, Elizabeth became acquainted with Roman Catholicism through her hosts, and became a convert. In order to support herself and her children, Seton had began an academy for young ladies, as was common for widows of social standing in that period. After news of her conversion to Catholicism spread, however, many parents withdrew their daughters from her tutelage. Elizabeth contemplated moving to Canada, which had a larger Catholic community. However, An order of priests, the Sulpicians, recruited her to begin a school for Catholic immigrants. This was the beginning of the 1 parochial school system in the US. The group of women who began the school in Emmitsburg, Maryland took vows and became the Sisters of Charity. January 5 Sonia Sotomayor (b.6/25/1954) Sonia Sotomayor is an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, serving since August 2009. She has the distinction of being its first Latina justice. She is the third female justice. Justice Sotomayor is of Puerto Rican descent. She was raised by her mother following the untimely death of her father. Author: My Beloved World. Sonya Sotomayor aspired to the bar from an early age. She attended Princeton on full scholarship graduating summa cum laude. She then attended Yale Law School on full scholarship as well and received her JD. Sotomayor began her legal career as an assistant district attorney in New York. She has had several federal appointments culminating in her appointment to the Supreme Court in 2009. January 6 Charlotte Ray (b.1/13/1850 d.1/4/1911) Charlotte Ray was the first Black woman attorney in the United States. She graduated from Howard University School of Law in 1872, and was admitted to the District of Columbia Bar. Later, she became the first woman admitted to practice before the Supreme Court of the District of Columbia. The racial and gender biases of the time made a career in law financially unsustainable. Charlotte became a teacher in Brooklyn and became involved in the National Association of Colored Women. January 7 St. Bernadette Soubirous of Lourdes (b.1/7/1844 d.4/16/1844) Bernadette Soubirous was the daughter of a poor miller from Lourdes, France. She is best known for witnessing Marian apparitions of a lady who asked that a chapel be built at a nearby garbage dump. This cite would become the grotto of Lourdes, said to be a place of healing. Each year several million pilgrims visit Lourdes seeking healing. January 8 Emily Greene Balch (b.1/8/1867 d.1/9/1967) Emily Greene Balch was an American economist, sociologist and pacifist. Balch combined an academic career at Wellesley College with a long-standing interest in social issues. She moved into the peace movement at the start of World War I in 1914, and began collaborating with Jane Addams of Chicago. She became a central leader of the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF) based in Switzerland. Balch was a recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize in 1946. January 9 Rigoberta Menchú (b.1/9/1959) Rigoberta Menchú is a K'iche' political activist from Guatemala. Menchú has dedicated her life to publicizing the rights of Guatemala's indigenous feminists during and after the Guatemalan Civil War (1960–1996), and to promoting indigenous rights in the country. 2 She was a recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize in 1992. She is the subject of a testimonial biography, I, Rigoberta Menchú (1983). January 11 We remember the women brought out of Africa into slavery, who were baptized against their will. January 12 Sr. Dianna Ortiz (b.1961) On November 2, 1989, while serving as a missionary in Antigua, Guatemala, Sr. Dianna Ortiz was kidnapped by the Guatemalan military. For 24 hours she was tortured and raped. Since then she has spoken about her ordeal and attempted to raise concern about the plight of victims of abduction and torture. In 1998, she founded the Torture Abolition and Survivors Support Coalition (TASSC), which provides support to survivors, especially those in the United States. January 13 Anne Reynolds (b.1/13/1934 d.3/0/2004) Anne Reynolds and her husband raised eight children. She became active in assisting Catholic parents of LGBT children by encouraging them to give their children unconditional love. Anne helped create conferences to educate youth, professionals, and the public, and worked with the Catholic Parents Network to assist parents. She wrote letters to publications and to pastors, assisted PFLAG (Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays) and was always available to speak with individuals. She cherished the clients she helped with Volunteer Counseling Service. January 14 Sr. Theresa Maxis (b.1810 d.1892) Sr. Mother Theresa Maxis Duchemin holds a unique place in black Catholic history. The story of black Catholicism is the story of a people who obstinately clung to a faith that gave them sustenance, even when it did not always make them welcome. Like many others, blacks had to fight for their faith; but their fight was often with members of their own household. Mother Theresa Maxis Duchemin helped to found two religious communities, one for white women and the other for black women. She served as the leader of both. In 1831, when a cholera epidemic struck Baltimore, the Oblates (the order Theresa had founded) helped nurse the sick. In the process Theresa’s mother, who had also joined the community, died of the disease. While the city fathers publicly thanked the white sisters for their service, they ignored the Oblates altogether. During the 1840’s, the community experienced a major crisis as ecclesiastical authorities tried to disband it. At that time Theresa, who was seven-eighths white, seems to have made a decision to no longer identify with her black heritage and left the Oblates. Soon thereafter she met a 3 young Belgian priest named Louis Florent Gillet, who was looking for sisters to teach in Monroe, Michigan. In November 1845, Sister Theresa and Father Gillet founded the Sisters, Servants of the Immaculate Heart of Mary (I.H.M.). She became the first Mother Superior (of a white community). Over the next decade, the Sisters opened several schools and orphanages in Michigan. In 1858, they were opened schools in Pennsylvania. In doing so, they incurred the wrath of Detroit’s Bishop, Peter Paul Lefevre, who used his authority to depose Mother Theresa. Lefevre knew about her racial background, and prejudice played a big part in his animosity toward her. After the bishop in Pennsylvania refused to take her, she became an exile without a community. She was forced to take refuge in Canada with the Grey Nuns of the Sacred Heart. For nearly twenty years Theresa lived with them, but she always considered herself a Sister of the Immaculate Heart of Mary. In 1885, Bishop James Wood of Philadelphia lifted the ban, and at age seventy-five, Mother Theresa was allowed to return to the community she had founded. Few founders of a religious community have followed, as one historian puts it, “so tortuous a path.” January 15 Etty Hillesum (b.1/15/14 d.1/30/1943) Etty Hillesum was the author of confessional letters and diaries which describe both her religious awakening and the persecutions of Jewish people in Amsterdam during the German occupation. Her diaries record the increasing anti-Jewish measures imposed by the occupying German army, and the growing uncertainty about the fate of fellow Jews who had been deported by them.