Waiting for a miracle with the Oblate Sisters of Providence
The Oblate Sisters may be the oldest order of black nuns in the world, and they got their start right here in Maryland. Now, their members are hoping to live long enough to see their founder, Mother Lange, officially recognized as a saint.
But first, they’ll need a miracle.
- CATONSVILLE, MD — 3/25/09 — Sister Mary Alice Chineworth, OSP, 91 (she will be 92 in July) (RT), gives Sister Mary Anthonia Nwoga, a Nigerian-born woman in her 40s (LT) a hug after the “Presentation of the Veil”. Liturgy of the Eucharist and Rite of First Profession for Sister Anthonia Nwoga was held at the Oblate Sisters of Providence. This is a big deal for an order that has seen its numbers decline steadily for years as nuns die off and aren’t replenished with new arrivals. The Oblate Sisters of Providence was founded in Baltimore in 1829 and is the first Roman Catholic religious order made up entirely of African American women. The taking of the black veil means Anthonia will go from “novice” to “professed sister,” and she’ll then have five years to decide whether to make her “final vows.” The point is this is a big step toward becoming a lifelong member of the order. (CHIAKI KAWAJIRI/Baltimore Sun/Baltimore Examiner and Washington Examiner)
- CATONSVILLE, MD — 3/25/09 — MD OBLATES E KAWAJIRI — Sister Mary Annette Beecham, Superior General of Oblate Sisters of Providence (LT), Sister Mary Anthonia Nwoga, a Nigerian-born woman in her 40s (Center) and Sister Mary Stephen Beauford, OSP (RT) have a prayer. Liturgy of the Eucharist and Rite of First Profession for Sister Anthonia Nwoga was held at the Oblate Sisters of Providence. This is a big deal for an order that has seen its numbers decline steadily for years as nuns die off and aren’t replenished with new arrivals. The Oblate Sisters of Providence was founded in Baltimore in 1829 and is the first Roman Catholic religious order made up entirely of African American women. The taking of the black veil means Anthonia will go from “novice” to “professed sister,” and she’ll then have five years to decide whether to make her “final vows.” The point is this is a big step toward becoming a lifelong member of the order. (CHIAKI KAWAJIRI/Baltimore Sun/Baltimore Examiner and Washington Examiner)
- CATONSVILLE, MD — 3/25/09 — MD OBLATES C KAWAJIRI — Sister Mary Annette Beecham, Superior General of Oblate Sisters of Providence (LT), gives Sister Mary Anthonia Nwoga, a Nigerian-born woman in her 40s (RT) a hug after the “Presentation of the Veil”. Liturgy of the Eucharist and Rite of First Profession for Sister Anthonia Nwoga was held at the Oblate Sisters of Providence. This is a big deal for an order that has seen its numbers decline steadily for years as nuns die off and aren’t replenished with new arrivals. The Oblate Sisters of Providence was founded in Baltimore in 1829 and is the first Roman Catholic religious order made up entirely of African American women. The taking of the black veil means Anthonia will go from “novice” to “professed sister,” and she’ll then have five years to decide whether to make her “final vows.” The point is this is a big step toward becoming a lifelong member of the order. (CHIAKI KAWAJIRI/Baltimore Sun/Baltimore Examiner and Washington Examiner)
- BALTIMORE,MD — 2/1/05 1906 photo of nuns at St. Frances Academy. (JED KIRSCHBAUM/BALTIMORE SUN)
- BALTIMORE,MD — 2/1/05: St. Frances Academy students Brandi Vaughan, left, and Brandon Wells look over the room where Mother Lange actually slept when teaching at the school. (JED KIRSCHBAUM/BALTIMORE SUN)
- HALETHORPE, MD–6/17/04–Sharon Knecht, project archivist, looks over a needlework sampler made by Harriett Cooper in 1843. Cooper was taught by Oblate Sisters of Providence in the early days of the order that began 175 years ago in Baltimore. (Kim Hairston/Baltimore Sun archives)
- HALETHORPE, MD–6/17/04–Sharon Knecht, project archivist, lifts a patterened needlepoint sampler made by Sarah Solomon in 1849. The sampler featuring St. John is made of berlin wool. The halo is silk. This is one of several pieces made by African American girls taught by Oblate Sisters of Providence. (Kim Hairston/Baltimore Sun)
- HALETHORPE, MD — 04/10/2008 — Sister Annette Beecham poses at Oblate Sisters of Providence Motherhouse Thursday, April 10, 2008. Sister Beecham will represent Baltimore at a clergy Mass in New York later. (Baltimore Sun Staff) / (Karl Merton Ferron)
- Deacon Paul Shelton delivers the Homily during Sunday’s Mass at the Chapel of the Oblate Sisters of Providence. Sunday’s service marked the 126th Anniversary of Mother Mary Lange’s death. Lange is currently in the process of possible canonization as a saint. (Maisie Crow/Baltimore Sun archives)
- A woman attending the transfer of remains for Mother Mary Lange touches the casing holding those remains. Monday, June 3, 2013 at Oblate Sisters of Providence in Arbutus. (Baltimore Sun archives)
- Baltimore,MD–10/19/95-At Our Lady of Mount Providence Convent’s sanctuary, members of The Oblate Sisters of Providence, U.S.A. (the first black order of nuns) Sister Mary Reginald Gerdes,left and Sister Mary Reparata Clarke (archivist) will be cataloguing the order’s artifacts with the help of a grant from The Baltimore County Historical Trust. The picket sign was used along the pope’s parade route to remind the pontiff about the order’s founder Sister Mary Elizabeth Lange and the order’s desire to see that eventually she be canonized and the small picture, right, hung in Lange’s room and is of Sainte Marie(Saint Mary) the blessed virgin. The French spelling reflects Sister Lange’s knowledge of the language coming from the Isle of Hispaniola. (Jed Kirschbaum/Baltimore Sun)
- Catonsville, MD–June 25, 2004- Oblate Sisters of Providence will be celebrating their order’s 175th anniversary next week. Here, Sister Mary Alice Chineworth, who has been a nun for 68 years, looks out the convent’s front door. (Barbara Haddock Taylor/Baltimore Sun)
- Catonsville, MD–June 25, 2004– Oblate Sisters of Providence will be celebrating their order’s 175th anniversary next week. Here, Sister Fatima Ellis holds her prayerbook. The median age of the sisters is 70. (Barbara Haddock Taylor/Baltimore Sun)
- Sister Mary Callista, 92 years old, has been with the Oblate Sisters of Providence for 75 years. Behind her is a painting of Sister Mary Elizabeth Lange, foundress of the world’s first order of nuns of African heritage. The Catholic order was founded in Baltimore in 1829, with the mission to teach children of color. This is my favorite picture because of Sister Callista’s expression which reveals so many things: strength, peace, contentment, faith. I like the painting of the foundress in the background not only because she appears to be looking upon one of her successors approvingly, but also because the painting conveys the passage of time and the passing of a legacy of religious service from generation to generation. (Algerina Perna/Baltimore Sun)
- CATONSVILLE, MD — 3/25/09 — MD OBLATES D KAWAJIRI — Sister Mary Anthonia Nwoga, a Nigerian-born woman in her 40s (front) wipes her tears while others goes on to Communion. Liturgy of the Eucharist and Rite of First Profession for Sister Anthonia Nwoga was held at the Oblate Sisters of Providence. This is a big deal for an order that has seen its numbers decline steadily for years as nuns die off and aren’t replenished with new arrivals. The Oblate Sisters of Providence was founded in Baltimore in 1829 and is the first Roman Catholic religious order made up entirely of African American women. The taking of the black veil means Anthonia will go from “novice” to “professed sister,” and she’ll then have five years to decide whether to make her “final vows.” The point is this is a big step toward becoming a lifelong member of the order. (CHIAKI KAWAJIRI/Baltimore Sun/Baltimore Examiner and Washington Examiner)
- CATONSVILLE, MD — 3/25/09 — MD OBLATES B KAWAJIRI — Sister Mary Annette Beecham, Superior General of Oblate Sisters of Providence (LT), placed the veil on Sister Mary Anthonia Nwoga, a Nigerian-born woman in her 40s (center) while Sister Mary Stephen Beauford, OSP (RT) stands as Formation Mistress. Liturgy of the Eucharist and Rite of First Profession for Sister Anthonia Nwoga was held at the Oblate Sisters of Providence. This is a big deal for an order that has seen its numbers decline steadily for years as nuns die off and aren’t replenished with new arrivals. The Oblate Sisters of Providence was founded in Baltimore in 1829 and is the first Roman Catholic religious order made up entirely of African American women. The taking of the black veil means Anthonia will go from “novice” to “professed sister,” and she’ll then have five years to decide whether to make her “final vows.” The point is this is a big step toward becoming a lifelong member of the order. (CHIAKI KAWAJIRI/Baltimore Sun/Baltimore Examiner and Washington Examiner)
- A member of the Oblate Sisters of Providence in May, 1968. (Baltimore Sun archives)
- Members of the Oblate Sisters of Providence in May, 1968. (Baltimore Sun archives)
- Members of the Oblate Sisters of Providence in 1966. (Baltimore Sun archives)
- A sister with the Oblate Sisters of Providence dons the older style habit in July, 1979. (Baltimore Sun archives)
- Owings MIlls–MD–8/26/13-Ravens’ quarterback Joe Flacco is greeted by Sister Alexis Fisher of the Oblate Sisters of Providence of Catonsville after practice. Their organization is the oldest black convent in the world. Baltimore Ravens football practice at the Under Armour Performance Center. (Lloyd Fox/Baltimore Sun)
- Baltimore Archbishop William E. Lori places the remains of Mother Mary Lange into a case before attendees of the ceremony are able to walk by and see them up close. Monday, June 3, 2013 in Arbutus. (Baltimore Sun archives)
- The Oblate Sisters of Providence (OSP) moved to this building in Catonsville, Maryland in the 1960s. They’re still based here today. (Christina Tkacik/Baltimore Sun)
- Sister Magdala Marie Gilbert, 86, directs the Mother Lange Guild, which is pursuing sainthood for the founder of the Oblate Sisters of Providence. They’re the oldest order of black nuns in the modern world. (Christina Tkacik/Baltimore Sun)
- Dinner at the motherhouse is simple and satisfying: chicken, mashed potato and vegetables. (Christina Tkacik/Baltimore Sun)
- A display case at the OSP convent shows the style of habit that Mother Lange and the early sisters wore in the 1800s. (Christina Tkacik/Baltimore Sun)
- At the OSP convent in Catonsville, kitchen tools used by early sisters remind todays nuns of the hardship their forebears faced. For a time, nuns took to the streets to beg for donations to keep the order afloat. (Christina Tkacik/Baltimore Sun)
- Photos show the first addresses of the Oblate Sisters of Providence — near what was then the city’s “French Quarter” — before they moved to a third motherhouse on Richmond Street. In the 1960s, the sisters moved to their current location in Catonsville. (Christina Tkacik/Baltimore Sun)
- Sister Magdala Marie Gilbert, who has been a nun for 68 years, says when she struggles, she tells herself, “Hey, this is nothing compared to what [Mother Lange] went through.” (Christina Tkacik/Baltimore Sun)
To qualify as a miracle, an event needs to be really extraordinary.
“It couldn’t have been done by ordinary means, by going to a doctor or a hospital or whatever,” says Sister Magdala Marie Gilbert, 86, of the Oblate Sisters of Providence. “It has to be a God thing.”
Gilbert’s expertise in miracles comes from her years working to have her order’s founder, Mother Lange, be declared a saint in the Catholic Church. In order to be publicly sanctified, multiple miracles, or healings, will need to take place – and be verified by doctors in Baltimore and Rome. A disease will be cured. Sight regained. Something amazing — attributed to Lange.
But to Gilbert, it’s a miracle that Mother Lange’s Oblate Sisters are still here at all.
“I say God had her back,” Gilbert said. “I wouldn’t call her stubborn, but she knew what she wanted, she knew who she was serving, and she went on and did what she had to do.”
Elizabeth Clarissa Lange was a woman of color born in the Caribbean — most likely in Santiago de Cuba — around 1794, to a well-to-do Catholic family. She spoke French and Spanish. Little else is known about her life until she moved to Baltimore around the year 1813, and with a friend opened a free school for black children, at their home in Fells Point.
“She was an absolutely extraordinary woman,” said Deacon Vito S. Piazza of St. Mary’s Chapel in Baltimore. Back then, St. Mary’s, located on Paca Street, ministered to the large Haitian immigrant community that lived in surrounding neighborhood, then known as the city’s French Quarter. People came, Piazza said, drawn by the Sulpician priests who ran St. Mary’s and could give homilies in French.
One of those Sulpician priests was named Fr. Joubert, a French-born priest who, like Lange, had spent time in Cuba. He had been teaching religion to the children in the area when he realized that many of them couldn’t read. He met with Lange and suggested, first that they start a school, and second, that they establish a new religious order to ensure a steady supply of nuns to be teachers.
“We’ve been waiting 10 years to consecrate our life to God,” Lange and her friend reportedly told Joubert. Together, they founded the Oblate Sisters of Providence, the first order of black nuns in modern history. The school they ran school was St. Frances, the oldest Catholic school for children of color in the United States.
This – at a time when much of Baltimore’s black population was enslaved, and racism ran rampant. “Some people believed that black people didn’t have a soul,” Knecht said. “And here you had these educated women who were educating children in a normal Catholic fashion.”
The sisterhood faced many challenges early on, particularly after Joubert’s death in 1844, Knecht said. Though Lange gave the order all her money, including several thousand dollars she received from her father, they struggled to stay afloat financially. Nuns begged for donations in Baltimore’s fish market and along the harbor, although Knecht said this was common practice for nuns in those days.
“I always say that she was a woman with four strikes against her,” said Knecht. Lange was a woman in a male-dominated society, a Catholic in a Protestant country, an immigrant in a nativist area and person of color in a slave state. But she succeeded anyway.
Sister Gilbert, who has struggled with plenty of health problems in her 68 years as a nun, said she finds inspiration in Mother Lange’s perseverance. When things are difficult, she tells herself, “Hey, this is nothing compared to what [Mother Lange] went through. At least I know where my next meal is coming, we have doctors who will take care of us. Then it was just an iffy thing.”
Lange died in 1882, presumably nearing 100. She was buried in West Baltimore; in 2013, her remains were exhumed and transferred to the Oblate Sisters’ motherhouse in Catonsville, where they were placed in a sealed sarcophagus, guarding against potential looters who might try to snag a body part, or relic, from the potential saint. Then, Archbishop Lori said: “I’m convinced of this cause of her sainthood, and this [event] is a sign that process is moving forward.”
Gilbert heads the guild pursuing Lange’s canonization, a journey that the Oblate Sisters began in the late 1980s. A roadblock has come with the length of time it’s taken for the writing of the positio — a dissertation-like biography of Lange’s life. It’s being written by a man named Brother Reginald Cruz, Gilbert said, though she hasn’t heard from him in years. Cruz did not respond to email requests for comment. Gilbert hopes he finishes while she’s still alive.
“We pray about that positio all the time,” she said. “We pray for it to hurry and get done.”
Knecht echoed the frustration at how long the positio is taking. “It’s coming slowly,” she said.
After the positio is complete, it will be sent to Rome for approval, and Lange could be made, “venerable.” A tribunal here in Baltimore and then in Rome will review a miracle attributed to Lange.
“There’ve been two that’ve been looked at” by doctors in Baltimore, Knecht said. “The first one did not hold up. The second one looked very very promising.”
As with a criminal investigation, the details are kept under wraps until the results are known, Knecht said.
“This is pretty serious business,” she said. “It’s gotta be medically proved or disproved.” Should that miracle pass muster, Lange will become “blessed.”
After that, yet another miracle will be needed attributed to Lange before she can be made a saint.
“But anyway, that’s all in God’s hands,” said Gilbert.