Tag Archives: convent

Nuns at home in a tavern

ARCHIVAL MOMENT

September 21, 1833

Presentation School, Patrick Street, St. John’s, NL date unknown

On September 20, 1883 there was much excitement in St. John’s with religious and civic officials gathering to celebrate the 50th Anniversary of the arrival of the Presentation Sisters to the colony of Newfoundland

The Irish nuns (Sister’s Bernard Kirwin, Magdalen O’Shaughnessy, Xavier Maloney and Xaverius Lynch) reached St John’s harbour on 21 September 1833 –  the first nuns to serve in Newfoundland. With no account of their arrival being received in Galway, Ireland,  until four months later,  they were given up for dead  at home  and as was the custom in the convent, a Solemn Requiem Mass was celebrated for them, and copies of their vows were burned. They were presumed dead.

The four Galway women came to Newfoundland at the invitation of the Catholic Bishop, Michael Fleming to establish a school that would offer improved educational opportunity for girls and young women in St. John’s.

Upon arrival in St. John’s the nuns were agreeably surprised by the appearance of Newfoundland.

“This country,” Sister Mary Bernard  Kirwin wrote in her first letter home, “is by no means as dreary as we heard. The bay is beautiful and so is the country as far as we can see.”

Within a few weeks of their arrival in St. John’s the sisters had gathered  approximately 450 studenets that they divided into classes. They began teaching in a room at the rear of an old tavern, the “Rising Sun” that also served as their home. The curriculum included grammar, literature, arithmetic, French, music, needle work, and Christian doctrine.

 “SKINNED ALIVE THE MASS OF SAINT CECELIA”

One of the observers of the 50th Anniversary celebrations in 1883 was Henri de la Chaume , attaché to the French Consul in St. John’s . On his return to France, he published a book about his experiences in the colony

The French attaché admired the good works of the Irish born nuns but he was not very kind about their musical ability, he wrote:

 “During this, (the 50th Anniversary Pontifical Mass) they (the nuns) most disgracefully skinned alive the Mass of Saint Cecelia and, not content with this first crime, they went on to profane the “Inflammatus” of the “Stabat Mater.”   (Latin hymn “the Mother was standing.”

He was, however, happy to report that:

 “The ceremony finished with a hymn where at last they did us the grace to give us an “0 Salutaris” by Miss (Clara) Fisher composed by Cherubini.”

One of the women kneeling in the chapel for the 50th Anniversary mass was

 “The Superior of the Convent, (90 year old, Sister Mary Magdalen O’Shaughnessy (1793-1888), one of the four sisters who came here fifty years ago, (she) was there bent over a prie-Dieu.”

Sister O’Shaughnessy  was never to return her beloved Ireland- in her first letter home in 1833 –  she wrote that she was struck by the evident prosperity of St John’s, Newfoundlandand the fondness of the children in the school for “dress-wear, necklaces, ear-rings, rings etc.”

From their appearance,  she wrote,

 “you would scarcely think you are teaching in a poor school. No such thing as a barefoot child to be seen here, how great the contrast between them and the poor Irish!”

Recommended Publication: Hammered by the Waves: A Young Frenchman’s Sojourn in Newfoundland in 1882-83:  Henri De La Chaume (Author), Robin McGrath (Editor), James M. F. McGrath (Translator) Creative Book Publishers, St. John’s, 2006.

Recommended Archival Collection: The Archives of the Presentation Congregation, St. John’s has a wonderful collection of archival documents relating to the lives of the women of the Presentation Congregations and their work in education in Newfoundland.

Recommended Activity: Visit the Presentation Convent at Cathedral Square, St. John’s home of the exquisite statue – The Veiled Virgin by Giovanni Strazza. Also home of an altar designed of pure marble, with carved motif’s documenting the first 50 years of the sisters work in Newfoundland.  (By appointment only)

Newfoundland is not as “dreary as we heard.”

Archival Moment

January 10, 1856

Nano Nagle founder of the Presentation Congregation.

Nano Nagle founder of the Presentation Congregation.

 “On the 10th of January, 1856 , Sister Mary Clare Waldron, Sister Mary Ignatius Quinlan, Sister Mary Rose Mullally, and Sister Mary Regis Haplin (novice) religious of the Presentation Order, came from the Mother house to establish another house of the Order at Riverhead in this town (St. John’s) under the authority of Most Reverend Dr. Mullock, Bishop of St. John’s .”

The first nuns to serve in Newfoundland reached St John’s harbour on 21 September 1833.

The four Galway women came to Newfoundland at the invitation of the Catholic Bishop, Michael Fleming to establish a school that would offer improved educational opportunity for girls and young women in St. John’s.

Upon arrival in St. John’s the nuns were agreeably surprised by the appearance of Newfoundland.

“This country,” Sister Mary Bernard Kirwin wrote in her first letter home, “is by no means as dreary as we heard. The bay is beautiful and so is the country as far as we can see.”

Within a few weeks of their arrival in St. John’s the sisters had gathered approximately 450 students that they divided into classes. They began teaching in a room at the rear of an old tavern, the “Rising Sun” that also served as their home. The curriculum included grammar, literature, arithmetic, French, music, needle work, and Christian doctrine.

The Presentation Sisters remain active in Newfoundland and Labrador. Some places where you will meet Presentation women are: The Gathering Place; Nano Nagle Spirituality Centre; Presentation Sisters’ Retreat House ; St. Catherine’s Renewal Centre; The Lantern and Xavier House.

Recommended Archival Collection: Presentation Congregation Archives, Cathedral Square, St. John’s. The collection, which includes manuscripts, artifacts, record books, photographs and personal papers, documents the history of the Presentation Congregation in Newfoundland from the arrival of the first four volunteers to the present day. The Archives also holds materials related to education and to other apostolates in which the Presentation Order is involved. An interesting part of the Archives is the photographic collection that presents a visual history of the Presentation Congregation in Newfoundland.

Recommended Reading: http://www.presentationsisters.ca/

Did you know? One of the ventures of the Presentation Congregation with others is the Gathering Place, Military Road, St. John’s (see the advertisement above) The Gathering Place offers a noon meal program each weekday. Since its opening in 1994, the program has served numbers ranging from 40 to 170 guests per day.

Mercy Sisters Open Their First School in the New World

ARCHIVAL MOMENT

May 1, 1843

Mercy Convent, Military Road, St. John's, NL.

The Congregation of the Sisters of Mercy was founded in Dublin, Ireland by Catherine McAuley on December 12, 1831.

At the request of Bishop Michael Anthony Fleming of St. John’s, Newfoundland three Irish women Frances Creedon, Ursula Frayne, and Rose Lynch began their Atlantic crossing on the Sir Walter Scott to begin working as missionaries in Newfoundland.

They arrived in St. John’s on June 3, 1842. With no convent ready they  took accommodations at Belvedere, Bishop Fleming’s residence.  (The street is now known as Margaret’s Place – off Newtown Road. Belvedere is the buidling  nearest to the MCP Building that was  the old  Belvedere Orphanage.)

During the first eleven months of the new mission, the Sisters of Mercy visited the sick and the poor in their homes. On December 12, 1842, the Sisters moved from their temporary home to their new convent on Military Road. This was the first Mercy Convent in the New World.

On May 1, 1843, Our Lady of Mercy School, Military Road, was formally opened. From this nucleus, other convents were opened throughout the province.

Through the years the Sisters of Mercy were engaged primarily in the teaching and nursing professions. In recent years their main focus has been in Pastoral Ministries in various localities in the province of Newfoundland and Labrador and in Peru.

Recommended Reading: “Weavers of the Tapestry”, Kathrine Bellamy’s, RSM -St. John’s, NL.  Flanker Press Limited   2006

 Recommended Web Site: http://www.sistersofmercynf.org/