Elizabeth Lange and the Oblate Sisters of Providence
Monday, February 22, 2016
Rogelio Zelada
The response of the Archbishop of Baltimore rang loud and clear in the cold office of the episcopal palace. The recent founding of the Oblate Sisters of Providence had become for him a point of annoyance as leader of the nation’s first diocese. “Why and what is the need for a congregation of black religious, with the purpose of educating black children?” His only comment on the work that Mother Mary Elizabeth Lange had begun was: "Cui bono?" ("Who benefits from that?"). By no means was the education of black children considered important, desirable or necessary in the flock that the Church had entrusted to his care.
Mother Mary Elizabeth Lange, founder of the Oblate Sisters of Providence.
Born into a wealthy family, Elizabeth Clarissa Lange was forced to emigrate to Santiago de Cuba because of the violence on the island of Santo Domingo around 1800. She learned Spanish in the largest of the Greater Antilles, and mastered it with complete fluency, just like French, her mother tongue. In the first months of 1812, a second exile takes her to Baltimore, where there was a large community of French-speaking Catholics and many refugees from Santo Domingo.
Elizabeth Lange had received an excellent education and inherited a good economic position from her parents. A deeply Catholic woman, she was moved by the need of many children of her own race who were denied the right to education, and began to teach black girls in her own home. She did it in a “slave” state, decades before the Emancipation Proclamation.
With other friends, she opened a school where they offered free education for 10 years, and also taught catechism to poor children in the seminary chapel of the Sulpician fathers. Providence placed Father James Joubert in the path of Elizabeth. Impressed by the dedication of this small and daring group of teachers, he proposed that they organize a religious community for the education of people of color. For Elizabeth, Father Joubert’s invitation was the answer she was expecting from God, to whom she wished to devote herself entirely, without knowing how.
Once the rules were drafted and approved by Archbishop James Whitfield, the Oblate Sisters of Providence were officially founded on July 2, 1829 as the first congregation of black religious women in the history of the Church. In a rented house, the first four Oblates professed poverty, chastity and obedience in a gesture that involved a tremendous amount of courage, bravery and hope.
Elizabeth Lange took the name of Mother Mary and was elected the first superior. Immediately, she began to suffer the attacks of white Catholics who felt outraged at seeing black women wearing the religious habit. The Oblates receive insults, beatings and threats, but do not stop their educational work. They also founded a home for orphans, cared for the sick, and served selflessly during the terrible cholera epidemic that hit the city in 1832.
Although the sisters risked their lives to care for plague victims, they were the only ones that the local authorities omitted from official recognition at the end of the epidemic.
Father Joubert's death was a blow to the fledgling congregation, a major crisis that left them without a confessor and spiritual director. Vocations and financial contributions were scarce, but the work continued despite the abandonment that the small community had to endure, along with days of cold, hunger, hard labor and a sense of failure. Archbishop Samuel Eccleston (Whitfield’s successor) considered the denouement of this community of black religious a done deal: "Let them seek work as maids."
The Lord sent help to Mother Lange in the person of Redemptorist Father Thaddeus Anwander, who with difficulty but tenacity, obtained permission from the archbishop to serve the Oblates, whose trust in Providence never wavered despite all the ordeals and setbacks. More students were recruited, the community grew, vocations increased and the Jesuit Fathers continued the spiritual care of the sisters.
In order to maintain their schools, the sisters earned money by sewing liturgical vestments and washing clothes; and even though domestic work was not part of their apostolate, Mother Lange agreed to send a group of sisters to serve in the Seminary of St. Mary – a difficult decision which she accepted as a collaborative mission and on which she placed clear conditions: "As people of color and religious at the same time, we wish to reconcile these two qualities ... not to pretend arrogance ... nor to lose the respect that is owed to the state that we have chosen and the sacred habit that we are honored to wear."
Mother Mary Lange was convinced that the basis of respect for others is born out of self-respect; 30 years before the abolition of slavery was proclaimed in the United States, she demanded respect for her sisters because of the color of their skin and their habit as women consecrated to God and to the service of the poor. The sisters will not be mere servants of white seminarians and priests, but will make an important contribution to the service of the seminary, because no job is small or demeaning if it is done out of love for God.
From the prayer, patience and confidence of Mother Lange, schools were born in Maryland, New Orleans, Philadelphia and St. Louis. Convinced that prayer can change the order of things, her life bears witness to all that is possible in the midst of the most adverse situations when there is full confidence in Divine Providence.
God gave a long life to Mother Lange, who died in the Motherhouse of the Oblates on Feb. 3, 1882 at the age of 98. At the time of her death, the Oblate Sisters of Providence had established homes in 18 states and expanded to Costa Rica, Cuba and the Dominican Republic.
In 1991, with the approval of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints, Cardinal William Keeler, archbishop of Baltimore, officially began the process of canonization of Mother Mary Lange, founder of the first community of black religious dedicated to serving the black community — the first such congregation in the United States and in the history of the Church.
Editor's note: Oblate Sisters of Providence currently serve at St. Patrick Church, Miami Beach.
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