Celebrating Black History Month
Relying on Providence:
Mother Mary Elizabeth Lange
By Susan Brinkmann
CS&T Correspondent
She lived in a world where blacks were enslaved, women had no rights and Catholics were hated.
But unlike thousands of others who would live and die in the obscurity of slavery and oppression in the slave-holding states of this country before the Civil War, Mother Mary Elizabeth Lange, O.S.P., found she could let the light of her soul shine like a beacon in the world of her times.
It was the light of Christ that blazed, and with it she created the first African American religious order in the United States.
Where her life began, in the early 1780s, is unknown other than that it was somewhere in the Caribbean. Oral tradition has it that she was born in Haiti, and that her family fled the island sometime during the 1791 slave revolt. At some point, the Lange family made its home in Santiago, Cuba, where she received an excellent education.
The exact date of her voyage to America is also not known, although it has been established that her family lived for some time in Charleston and Norfolk before arriving in Fells Point, in Baltimore, in 1813. She made her home there in the midst of a large community of French-speaking Catholics from Haiti.
It was not easy to be a black woman in a slave-holding state, but Elizabeth Lange was never a coward. A well-educated woman of means, she was strong-willed and deeply spiritual. When she saw black children growing up in a slave society that offered them no education, no training, no hope for anything but a life of toil and poverty, she decided something had to be done.
Along with a friend, MarieMagdaleine Balas, who would later be known as Sister Frances, O.S.P., she started a school for black children in her home. Along with academic subjects, and instruction in the Catholic faith, the children were taught music, the Classics, and fine art. They were also involved in choirs, concerts, recitals, and competitions for medals and awards in various subjects. Annual examinations were given by faculty members of St. Mary’s and Loyola Colleges.
In a world that saw her students as less than human, she encouraged them to strive for excellence.
Throughout this time, she is known to have worshiped in the Lower Chapel of St. Mary’s Seminary, and she was a good friend of Father Moranville, the pastor of St. Patrick Church in Fells Point.
It may have been to this priest that she first confided her desire to consecrate her life to God — a hope that would pose a new hardship in her life.
At the time, black men and women were not permitted into religious life. But she knew that with God, all things are possible.
In time, the excellence of her work caught the attention of Archbishop James Whitfield of Baltimore. He was so impressed by her fervor and dedication that, after meeting her, he was said to have exclaimed: “In this work is the finger of God.”
The archbishop sent Father James Hector Joubert, S.S., to encourage her to found a new order dedicated specifically to the education of black children.
With great joy, she opened her heart to the will of God. On July 2, 1829, in a rowhouse in Baltimore, she and four other black women pronounced their vows, becoming the first order of black nuns in the American Catholic Church.
She took the name of Mary in the new order, which called itself the Oblate Sisters of Providence.
Father Joubert provided the Sisters with spiritual direction, helped to raise money for their apostolate, and encouraged other black women to join them.
Within a year, they began taking in orphans, widows and elderly people who had no one to care for them. When the cholera epidemic struck Baltimore in 1832, they cared for the black inmates in the almshouse. Then their school began to provide vocational training for the young students, including homemaking skills and embroidery.
The sisters provided spiritual direction, ran Bible schools, went on home visits, and conducted a night school to teach adult blacks how to read and write.
As new sisters joined the order and their workload increased, their superior, Mother Mary Elizabeth Lange,kept them inspired and motivated. When there was a problem, she’d say, “Sister, hasten to the Blessed Sacrament,” or “We recommend this important affair to our good Mother.”
Mother Mary served as superior general of the order from 1829 to 1832, and then again in 1835 to 1841.
She always kept her heart open to divine Providence, and to the needs of the people she served.
As a result, both the new order and its work flourished — even amid extreme hostility from neighbors, who resented their presence in the neighborhood.
When the number of students outgrew the school, no one would sell the order any real estate — in fact, local landlords raised their rents, just to prevent the Sisters from moving into their properties.
But Providence once again delivered — a friend of the young community sold the Sisters a house on Richmond Street in Baltimore. That site became St. Frances of Rome Academy, which is now the oldest continuing educational facility for black children in the United States.
Although the order would eventually open schools in Philadelphia, New Orleans, and St. Louis, the Sisters experienced hard times in the 1840s. Thirty years before the Emancipation Proclamation, their staunchest supporters began to dwindle even in a state where slavery was still legal.
By then, Archbishop Whitfield had died and Father Joubert was terminally ill. Because the order had fallen into near-poverty, the new archbishop of Baltimore ordered them to disband — to give up their apostolate and become domestics.
Mother Mary refused to disband the order, but the Sisters did accept work as housekeepers at St. Mary’s Seminary.
Although Oblates Sisters of Providence were not aware of it at the time, that, too, was the work of God. Their $60 annual salary was enough to allow them to continue their mission of providing Catholic education to black children.
Until the end of her life, at the age of 87, Mother Mary Elizabeth Lange remained devoted to the Church and her mission on earth. She died in Baltimore in 1882, and her funeral was held in the Cathedral of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin.
The order she founded is now 176 years old, and its mission has expanded to 25 cities in the United States, Cuba, Costa Rica and the Dominican Republic.
In a decree announcing the first steps to advance the cause for her canonization, Archbishop William H. Keeler of Baltimore described Mother Mary Elizabeth Lange as a woman of faith and courage, who “set for herself and her early companions the task of teaching little ones of African descent in a culture and a climate hostile to meeting this need.”
Contact Susan Brinkmann at fiat723@aol.com or (215) 965-4615
Official prayer for the beatification of Mother Lange
Almighty and Eternal God, you granted Mother Mary Lange extraordinary trust in your providence. You endowed her with humility, courage, holiness and an extraordinary sense of service to the poor and sick. You enabled her to found the Oblate Sisters of Providence and provide educational, social and spiritual ministry especially to the African American community.
Mother Lange’s love for all enabled her to see Christ in each person, and the pain of prejudice and racial hatred never blurred that vision.
Deign to raise her to the highest honors of the altar in order that, through her intercession, more souls may come to a deeper understanding and more fervent love of you.
Heavenly Father, glorify your heart by granting also this favor (here mention your request) which we ask through the intercession of your faithful servant, Mother Mary Lange. Amen.If favors received, please contact the Oblate Sisters of Providence at (401) 242-8500.