‘True to the Vision of the Foundress’

By LOU BALDWIN
CS&T Staff Writer

What better time to spotlight the Society of the Holy Child Jesus than Christmas tide, the birth celebration of the Holy Child?
Founded in 1848, this congregation has never been afraid of being innovative.
For example, when Sister Carmen Torres was a postulant, they could have sent her to their own Rosemont College for studies. Instead she went to very secular Hunter College, a branch of CUNY (City University of New York.)
She didn’t broadcast the fact that she was a religious, but was surprised by the number of people who would come to her for spiritual guidance and advice once they knew. It was a great experience, she said.
Her own spiritual journey began at now-closed St. Edward School, where Holy Child Sisters taught. It was only after Little Flower Catholic High School for Girls, further education and work as a medical receptionist that a serious desire for a religious vocation blossomed. She was in contact with several congregations, but ultimately the Holy Child Sisters, who taught her in elementary school had the most appeal.
“I entered in 1984. I liked their spirit, their sense that each person brings a gift and the individual is important. Our foundress, Cornelia Connelly said, ‘Be yourself, but make yourself what God wants you to be.’”
Coming from a family of seven children, Sister Carmen found living in community not the greatest challenge. “I’m Puerto Rican. I was the only Hispanic in the congregation and it was a big cultural adjustment. I was the first in the family to leave home and family means lot in our culture.”
Sister Carmen taught on the secondary level and discovered she loved teaching. Here in Philadelphia, she was director of religious education for the Hispanic community for the archdiocesan Office for Religious Education, and now she’s director of the Catholic Institute for Evangelization in North Philadelphia, which focuses on adult evangelization in the Hispanic community. As director, she still finds opportunities to be in a classroom. “I love teaching. I love being a vowed religious and I love being a Catholic.”
Sister Anita Quigley was a classroom teacher before she entered the Holy Child Sisters. “I taught at St. Denis, Havertown, but I always felt I wanted more,” she explained.
Her first contact with the Holy Child Sisters was at age nine, when her mother, a Rosemont College alumna took her to a function at the campus, and she loved both it and the Holy Child Sisters.
Later she met the Sisters again at the School of the Holy Child, Sharon Hill and as a Rosemont College student. “During college, I thought of religious life but their were just too many other options,” she confessed
The thought stuck, and later, when she had an opportunity to spend a week living with Holy Child Sisters she was sold.
”I came to know I had a call to live out God’s plan.”
Sister Anita entered in 1979. Her first teaching assignment was in Harlem, with others to follow. “I’m always finding God in the children, faculty, family and friends.”
A committed teacher, now she’s based in Wynnewood and out of the classroom, supervising Holy Child volunteers in various schools. “I love teaching, but everything we do is teaching, just in different ways.”
As a Holy Child Sister, Sister Anita finds especially appealing the Ignatian spirituality which has been part of the congregation from its foundation and, “being who God wants me to be. We are a group of individuals, we don’t get lost in the group.”
The Society of the Holy Child Jesus was founded by Cornelia Peacock Connelly, a convert and former Philadelphian. Mother Connelly, a woman of faith who endured great challenges and personal sorrows, founded her society in England at the specific request of Pope Gregory XVI and England’s Cardinal Nicholas Wiseman.
She called it a society rather than a congregation because of her close spiritual ties with the Jesuits, according to Holy Child Sisters’ vocation director Sister Jeanne Marie Hatch. Originally the focus was the education of women and girls, on the elementary, high school and college levels, and boys in elementary schools.
While Sisters Anita and Carmen retain an abiding love for teaching, the trend for the congregation is in other directions
“The wants of (Mother Cornelia’s) age were education” Sister Jeanne Marie said. “Cornelia always said we should meet the wants of the age. After Vatican II we better understood what she meant.”
Under visionary leadership, post-Vatican II, the Sisters began to branch out. “Education is well-served by dedicated lay men and women now,” she said. “We found we have women who have gifts in social, spiritual and medical ministries and they are in different fields.”

Contact Lou Baldwin at (215) 587-3672 or lbaldwin@adphila.org

The Society of the Holy Child, Jesus, S.H.C.J.

Charism: To help others believe that God lives and acts in them and in our world; to enable others to live fully human lives of faith
Preparation:
Candidacy: Six months to two years experience in community and ministry
Novitiate: Two years of study, spirituality, formation and ministry
Temporary Profession: Three to five Years, renewable annually
Final Vows: After temporary vows
Brief History: founded in England by Cornelia Connelly, a Philadelphia-born American in 1846 for formal education of women and girls. Began schools for women of all classes in the United States in 1862. Currently on four continents and 20 states in educational, medical, spiritual and social ministries. Within the Archdiocese: Province Offices, Rosemont College, Providence Center, Spirituality Center, infirmary and retirement houses, Holy Child schools in Rosemont and Drexel Hill and Hope Partnership , Philadelphia.
Contact: Sister Jeanne Marie Hatch, S.H.C.J., Holy Child Offices, 460 Shadeland Ave., Drexel Hill, Pa., 19026; phone (210) 626-1400 ex. 304; fax: (610) 626-0451; e-mail jhatch@shcj.org, Web site: www.shcj.org