Letter of August 18, 2006

Another Haitian-American On the Way to Sainthood
The Most Reverend Carl F. Mengeling, Bishop of Lansing

Like Pierre Toussaint, another Haitian-American is moving toward sainthood. She is Mother Mary Lange the foundress of a Religious Order for African-American women in 1829. Her extraordinary life and mission coincided with a period in our history when people were sold and kept as slaves.

Two remarkable achievements at this time are still alive and flourishing today. In 1829, a FIRST happened. She founded the first congregation of African-American Women Religious in the history of the church. The Oblate Sisters of Providence, founded 177 years ago, is alive and active today.

Given the times and slavery, another FIRST is even more astonishing. After coming from Haiti to Baltimore in 1813, she opened the first school for African-American children. It continues today as St. Frances Academy on Chase Street in the eastern part of Baltimore. Today’s enrollment is 300 with over 90% going on to college.

Here is brief biography by a sister of the Oblate Sisters of Providence:

The early years of Mother Mary Elizabeth Lange, the foundress of the Oblate Sisters of Providence, have been delineated more by oral tradition than by anything else. Elizabeth was born in the 1780s, a native of the Caribbean where havoc was constantly being created by both weather and the will of man. Her country of birth is not documented but oral tradition says she was born in Haiti and moved with her family to Santiago, Cuba. She received an excellent education and in the early 1800s Elizabeth left Cuba and settled in the United States. By 1813, Providence directed her to Baltimore, Maryland where a large community of French speaking Catholics from Haiti was established. Elizabeth came to Baltimore as a courageous, loving, and deeply spiritual woman. She was a strong, independent thinker and doer. As a well educated immigrant, she was of independent means, possessing monies left to her by her father. It did not talk Lange long to recognize that the children of her fellow immigrants needed education. She determined to respond to that need by opening a school in her home for the children. She and her friend, Marie Magdaleine Balas (Sr. Frances, OSP) operated the school for over ten years.

Providence intervened through Reverend James Hector Joubert, SS., who was encouraged by Archbishop Whitfield of Baltimore, presented Elizabeth Lange with the challenge to found a religious congregationi for the education of black children. He would provide direction, solicit financial assistance, and encourage other "women of color" to become members of this, the first congregation of African-American women religious in the history of the Catholic Church. Elizabeth joyously acquiesed. She need no longer keep locked up the deepest desire of her heart. For years she had felt God’s call to consecrate herself and her works entirely to Him. How was this to be? Black men and women could not at that time aspire to the religious life. But now God was providing a way! On July 2, 1829 Elizabeth and three other women professed their vows and became Oblate Sisters of Providence.

Elizabeth, foundress and first superior of the Oblate Sisters of Providence, took the name of Mary. She was superior general from 1829 to 1832, and from 1835 to 1841. This congregation would educate and evangelize African-Americans. Yet they would be open to meeting the needs of the times. Thus the Oblate Sisters educated youth and provided a home for orphans. Slaves who had been purchased and then freed were educated and at times admitted into the congregation. They nursed the terminally ill during the cholera epidemic of 1832, sheltered the elderly, and even served as domestics at St. Mary’s Seminary in a time of crisis.

Mother Mary’s life prepared her well for the turbulence that followed the death of Father Joubert in 1843. She suffered violence of soul as she was buffeted by poverty and racial injustice. There was a sense of abandonment at the dwindling number of pupils and defections of her closest companions and co-workers. Yet, through it all Mother Mary never lost faith in Providence. Mother Mary Lange practiced faith to an extraordinary degree. In fact, it was her deep faith which enabled her to persevere against all odds. To her black brothers and sisters she gave herself and her material possessions until she was empty of all but Jesus, whom she shared generously with all by witnessing to His teaching. In close union with Him, she lived through disappointment and opposition until God called her home, February 3, 1882.

On February 10, 2000, the city of Baltimore dedicated a monument to Mother Mary Lange. Here are excerpts from a speech by Mayor O’Malley:

"I am honored to be here today to help dedicate this memorial to Mother Mary Lange - a woman whose life’s work, faith and leadership created a powerful positive legacy in Baltimore... a woman whom I am sure the Pope will ultimately judge to have been a saint among us.

Mother Mary should be an inspiration to all of us in modern Baltimore who sometimes think the problems our city, our young people, our families face are too overwhelming.

At times, most of us are guilty of failing to act because the odds are too long, or the results too unsure, or the problems so large that our small efforts are just a drop in the ocean.

Think about the obstacles Mother Mary faced. In 1828 and 1829, as a young black woman in a slaveholding state, she founded a school for African-American children that still serves our city today, and then founded a religious order - the Oblate Sisters of Providence - to serve members of our community that the existing religious community and government refused to serve.

Mother Mary understood that education is critical, and that the foremost duty of any generation is to prepare the next generation for greater things. The example she set here in Baltimore, grew into the good work that continues today here and throughout the Western Hemisphere. The Oblate Sisters minister to youth, the poor and the aged, carrying the mission of Mother Mary Lange from the 1800s to the 2000s.

It has been said that the most powerful weapon in the hands of an oppressor is the mind of the oppressed. St. Frances Academy began in Mother Mary’s house in Fells Point in the early 1800s, dedicated to freeing the minds of children oppressed by their circumstances and by a racist system that undervalued their potential."

On August 5, 2001, the Archbishop of Baltimore, Cardinal Keeler, blessed a window featuring Mother Mary Lange.

It is in the Crypt Chapel of our National Shrine, the Basilica of the Immaculate Conception in Washington.

Her window is at the right of Blessed Teresa of Calculta. On the right is Pierre Toussaint, another Haitian-American is process toward Sainthood.