The Life Of Mother Frances Mary Teresa Ball : Foundress In Ireland Of The Institute Of The Blessed Virgin Mary

Front matter

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Preface

cherished. It is true that the Institute which she was called by Providence to introduce into Ireland has long been known, as it is still known, abroad by the name of the 1 English Ladies 9 or 1 English Virgins' from whose zeal and piety it first sprung. These facts might justify an Englishman in putting together the life of an Irish Foundress, even were it not also true that in the Catholic Church there are no distinctions of nationality, and that no part of the British Empire can be without a lively interest in the character of one, whose spiritual children are labouring in the holy came of education in almost every land which awns the sway of that Empire.

But you also know at whose request it was that this work has been undertaken, and that I have throughout attempted little more than to put in order the materials with which you have yourselves furnished me. The greater part of the work, therefore, is not mine, and it has only been done at all because I could not refuse to do it. Such as it is, I commit this Life of Mother Mary Teresa to your kind indulgence, thankful only to have been allowed in any way to bear a part in doing public honour to one who was so

Preface.

xiii singlehearted and energetic in her service to God, and whose memory is so tenderly venerated by all those who had the privilege of knowing her and working with her.

I am ever, Dear Reverend Mother, Your faithful servant in Christy

H. J. COLERIDGE.

St. Mary's Convent, Micklegate York, Feast of St. Bartholomew, 1880.

Contents

PAGE

Introductory Letter of His Grace the Most

Rev. the Archbishop of Dublin . v Preface by the Author . . T1 -

Chapter I. A Great Archbishop

PAGE

Vicissitudes in Church

History 3 Recent growth in Ireland

and England . . 4 Ireland at the beginning of

the century ... 5 Great servants of the Church 6 Daniel Murray ... 7 His Episcopate . . 7 Religious Institutes . 9 Great part of Dr. Murray . 10 Scanty information concerning him , .11 His birth and education . 12 First labours as priest . 13 Made Coadjutor . .13 His characteristic virtues . 14 Opposition to the Veto . 15 Sermon on Good Friday . 16 His protest against the Ecclesiastical Tides Bill 1 7

His preaching . . . x g His work as Archbishop . 20 Congregations and Associations . . ,21 All Hallows College . 2 1 State of Dublin when he

began .... 22 And of the Catholics . 24 Revival during his Archi-

episcopate . . .25 His zeal and saintliness . 26

Chapter II. Frances Ball

Birth of Frances . . 28 The Convent at York . 29 Frances and Anna Maria 30 Her schooldays . . 31 Her friends . . .32 Her father's death . .33 Her return home . . 33 Her acquaintance with Dr.

Murray . . -34 Life with her mother . 35 xvi

Contents.

PAGE

Dr; Murray's discretion . 36 Obedience . . .37 Frances at a ball . . 38 Her desire to enter religion 39 Dr. Murray's advice . 40 Foundation of the Sisteis

of Charity . . , 41 Frances advised to wait • 43

Chapter HI.

Frances preparing herself. 44 Frequent prayer . . 45 Dr. Murray writes to York 46 Opposition of Mrs. Ball . 47 She is moved by a sermon 48 'Withdrawal of her refusal 49 The religious of The Bar . 50 Letter of the Superior . 51 Frances visits her sister at

Cork . . . .52 York Minster . . .53 Frances in the convent . 53

Chapter IV. Seven Years at York

Frances as a postulant . 55

Her clothing . . . 56

Perfection of observance . 57

With the children . . 58

Severe trials . . . 58 Her profession . . -59

Desires to remain at York 60

Letter of Dr. Murray . 61 Chances of the Irish Foundation . . , ,63

Another Letter . . 64 Delay in the execution of

the plan . . . 67

PAGE

First recruits . . 68

Anne Therry and Eleanor Arthur . , .69

Third letter from Dr.

Murray, ... 70

Preparation for leaving York . . 71

Purchase of Rathfarnham house . .72

Mary Teresa and her companions at Dublin, . 73

With the Sisters of Charity 74

Chapter V. Beginning at Rathfarnham

Condition of the house . 75 The Sisters at Stanhope-street . . . 76 Removal to Bathfarnham 77 The chapel . . . 77 First novices . . -78 Beginnings of the school . 79 Opposition . . 80 Early crosses . . .81 The poor-school . .8a Happiness of this time . 83 Death of M. Baptist Therry 85 First friends and helpers . 86 Father Kenny . . .86 Two letters from him . 88

Chapter VI. The First Sisters

Character of Mary Teresa 96 Her first companions . 97 Mary Ignatia Arthur . 98 Mary Baptist Therry . 100 Mistress of Novices . . 103 Rules on entering any office .... 104

Contents.

xvii

PAGE . 105 IO7 107 I08 IO9 III Il2

Her first novices Her death

Mary Catharine Corballis .

Her zeal ....

Skill in affairs .

Great sufferings Mary Bernard Blake Her death

Mary Aloysia McCarthy .

Mary Paul Finn Mary Xaveria M'Carthy .

Mistress of Schools .

At Navan and Harcourt-street .....

The fear of death .

Her death

Mary Gonzaga Corballis .

In the novitiate.

Mistress of Novices .

Charge of the schools Assistant and Mistress of

Schools Meekness and firmness .

Love for her Superior The Jubilee . .

Last illness of M. Gonzaga 133 Her death . . .134

Chapter VII. The Mother Superior

Mary Teresa's life uniform 1 35 Merged in that of the Institute . . . . I3 6 Her thoughts as to God's

Greatness . ; . ,37 Presence of God . . 138 Observance of silence . 138 Devotion to the Sacred

Heart .... 139 Love for Church feasts . 140 Special devotions . .141

PAGE

Care for religious Instruc-

141 142

'43 '44 145

120 122

"3 124 125 126 tion

Love for the poor Religious poverty .

Exactness of observance Care for charity Love of humble occupation 1 45 Dignity of manner . . 146 Tender compassionateness 147 Some of her spiritual notes 148 Chapter VIII.

Some Letters.

To a spiritual child To the same .

To the same .

To the same .

To the same .

To the same .

To the same .

To the same .

To the same .

To the same .

To a former pupil To the same .

To the Superior at York To the same To the same To the same To the same To the same To the same To the same To the same To the same To the same

Chapter IX. Progress of the Institute at Home

Gradual growth . , 179 Filiation to Navan . .180

151 152

171 172

'74 176

Contents.

xviii

PAGE

The first colony . .

Harcourt -street) Dublin .

18;

Stephen's-green

North Great George's-st.,

Dublin

The church at Rathfarn-

Miss Arthur

First stone laid

First Mass

St. Columba .

Mary Teresa's Silver Jubilee ....

Death of Mary Magdalene

Lalor ....

Of Mary Gonzaga Corballis ....

Of Mary Xaveria Mooney

Of Lucy Conlan •

Dedication of the church

IQ2

New foundations v •

Dalkey • • • •

Gorey • • • •

Mary Benedicta Somers .

Superior at Gorey .

'97

Zeal of Mary Benedicta .

Love for spreading devotion ....

Her last illness and death

Conversion of a Protestant lady ....

Of a Protestant clergyman

Letter from the same

Chapter X. The Institute in India

Necessity for Teaching orders ....

Invitation to India . ,

PAGE

Father Haly and Dr. Backhaus .

Application refused, then accepted • • •

The voyage • •

Arrival at Calcutta , .

Dr. Carew's Sermon

The convent and church .

School begun .

Chandernagore .

School opened

The orphanage

A pagan

The Miraculous Medal

The first death

First reception of novices

Cholera ....

The general hospital •

Sister Veronica Fox

Chittagong • •

22 1

Dacca ....

Darjeeling

Boarding-school and orphanage at Calcutta

Asylums ....

Convents ....

Death of Mary Teresa

Harper • • .

Death of Dr. Carew

Sufferings in Bengal

Chapter XI

Missions in the Mauritius, Gibraltar, Bombay \ and Cadiz.

Catholics in the British

Empire . . . 234 Colony to the Mauritius 235 Gibraltar . . . 236 Bombay . . . .238 Cadiz .... 239

Contents.

xix

Chapter XII. Canada

PAGE

Sisters asked for Toronto 241 At Liverpool . . .242 Arrival at Toronto . . 243 Difficulties on landing . 243 Gloom of their reception . 244 First friends . . . 245 Death of the bishop . 246 The first Christmas . . 246 Sister Mary Gertrude . 246 Amputation . , . 248 M.De Sales . . .248 Removal to Simcoe-street 249 Death of Mary Gertrude 250 Mgr. de Charbonnel , 25 1 Death of Mother Mary

Ignatia , . .251 M. Mary Teresa Dease,

Superior . . .251 Letter of the bishop • 252 Fresh recruits from Ireland 252 Letter on their arrival . 253 Letter from Sister E. M.

Dease . . . .255 Death of Sister M. Magdalene Shea . . 256 Foundation at Guelph ,257 Foundation at Niagara . 258 At Hamilton . . . 259 At Lyndhurst . . . 260

Chapter XIII. Some more Letters* To Mother Mary Teresa

Dease . . . .263 To the same . . , 264 To the same . . ,265 To the same . . , 269 To the same . . , 270

To the same To the same To the same To the same To the same To the same To the same To the same To the same To the same To the same To the same

PAGE

. 272

Chapter XIV. Other Foundations in Ireland and England

Progress of the Institute . 286 House at Clontarf . . 286 House at Bray Head . 287 House at Hulme, Manchester . . . 288 Archbishop Murray . , 288 Beginning of 1852 . . 290 His practice of daily Mass 291 Last visit to Rathfarnham 292 Sudden illness on Shrove

Tuesday . , .292 His death . . . 293 The blow to Mary Teresa 293 Loss to the Institute His heart at Rathfarnham

294 296

Chapter XV. Last Foundations

Character of the Institute 297 Trials of Mary Teresa . 298 Kindness of Cardinal

Cullen .... 299 Foundation at Lough

Cooter .... 300 Ultimately abandoned . 301

XX

Contents.

PAGE

Fermoy . . . . 3 QI Bishop Timothy Murphy . 302 Mother Eucharia? Dease . 302 Mother Mary Gertrude

Lambert . . . 3°3 Letterkenny . . . 3°3 Raphoe . . . . 3°5 Mother Concepcion Lopez 306 Account of her . . 306 House at Omagh . .312 Killarney ; . .313 Death of Mary Scholastica

Clarke . . . . 3 X 3 Of Sister Mary Baptist

M'Donnell . . . 3>5 Chapter XVI.

Sunset.

Mary Teresa at sixty-six . 316 Feast of St. Teresa . . 317 ' Celebration in i860 . .318 Message from Dr. Moriarty 319 Accident to Mary Teresa 320 Prayers and Novenas . 321 Great sufferings . . 322 Mass in her room . . 322 Gleam of hope in December 323 Christmas Day . . 324 The Purification . . 324 Last gifts . . .325 Mary Bernard Blake . 325

PAGE

Her death on Holy Saturday s 326 Great trials at Easter .327 Holy Communion . .328 Month of Mary . . 329 Removal to Dalkey . . 330 Her arrival . . .331 Friday before Whit Sunday 332 Parting from Father Burke 336 Whitsun Eve . . . 334 Whit Sunday . . .335 Father Fortescue . . 335 Last moments . . . 336 Removal of remains to

Rathfarnham . . 337 The Funeral . . . 338 Month's Mind . . . 339 The Institute of the Blessed

Virgin . . . .339 Its gradual growth . . 340 The Convent at York . 341 Irish spirit . . . 341 List of the Houses . . 343 Confirmation of the Institute . . . .349 Conclusion . . . 350

Appendix

Sermon preached by the Rev. Thomas Burke, O.P., June, 1861 . . 357

MOTHER MARY TERESA BALL.

CHAPTER I. A Great Archbishop

It is always the characteristic of the history of the Church, that while she suffers and seems to lose ground in some parts of the world at any given time, she is rewarded and consoled by progress and increasing fruitfulness elsewhere. The same periods which are full of indications of comparative decay in one continent, are the times when she multiplies her children and extends her dominions in another. The loss of a large part of Northern Europe, in the century which immediately followed the outbreak of the so-called Reformation, was made up to her by the opening of new fields of labour and suffering to her apostles and martyrs in the far East and in the New World. In the course of the present century, the Church has been sorely afflicted in many countries of Europe, which were of old the scenes of her greatest triumphs or her most secure possession. On the other hand, she has been largely compensated for her calamities, in

Italy and France and elsewhere, by the revival which has been witnessed in Ireland and in England, and by the extraordinary fertility of her labours in North America. To say this is almost the same thing as to say that the Church, in each part of the world, has her successive seasons of prosperity and adversity , her chilling winters, her springs of promise, her summers of glory, and her fruitful autumns. She can never afford to rest in peace and ease upon her past successes; and if at any place or time she is comparatively inactive, she is liable at the same time to the danger which must ever attend inaction in the struggle which she has to maintain, ' not against flesh and blood, but against principalities and powers, against the rulers of the world of this darkness, against the spirits of wickedness in the high places.'*

Wherever, and to whatever races or classes, the peaceful sway of the Church extends, her children are bound together in one happy communion of love and brotherly concord. It is the law of her existence that the same life breathes and thrills through the whole of her body, and that the prosperity or affliction of any one part is felt with the most tender sympathy

1 Eph. vi 12.

by all the others. 1 Whether one member suffer, all the members suffer with it ; or if one member glory, all the members rejoice with it. ,a But it is still natural for us to feel an intense gratitude to the loving Providence under which we live, when we find ourselves in that part of the battlefield where victory, rather than defeat and discouragement, is the lot of the combatants for the cause of God. And if this be so, we may well thank God with especial fervour that we live in the days when the Church in Ireland and England is visited, after so long a period of darkness and persecution, by one of those gleams of sunshine and comparative triumph which have beeq so long denied to the spiritual children of St. Patrick and St. Augustine.

The history of the development, in the century in which we live, of the spiritual and religious life of the ever faithful but deeply-tried land, which owes its faith and all its glories to St. Patrick, is certainly one of the brightest pages in the annals of the Church of this century. The prospects of the country seemed dark, indeed, after the extinction of the rising in 1798, and the Act of Union which put an end to the Legis-

2 I Cor. xii., 26.

lative independence of Ireland. The Emancipation of Catholics, in the sense of their full equality with the Protestant minority of the country, was still long to be delayed. Politically and socially, the immediate effect of the late legislation was, indeed, to lighten the fetters under which the Catholics had so long groaned, but still to leave them in the condition of helplessness and degradation to which so many years of oppression had reduced them, without affording them any help in their endeavours to rise. Everything was to be done, and they had no resources but their own wherewith to do it ; yet the religious revival and development did not linger. The earlier years of the present century are full of indications of the coming prosperity ; and long before the Church had begun to show her wonderful power of growth in North America, and to lift up her head once more even in England and Scotland, she was showing in Ireland every mark of great and rapid advance. The days of persecution were over, though the time of full freedom was yet to come. The Church, in truth, requires only peace to enable her to advance. Nothing but violent repression could stunt her power of growth in Ireland ; and though poor and still labouring under a number of social disadvantages, her children were full of energy and enthusiasm, and her soil teemed with active and enterprising souls, a large proportion of whom were ready to spend their lives in the service of the altar and in restoring the beauty of the spiritual sanctuary. The Church required great souls for her service, and they were not denied to her. As is always the case, too many of these distinguished servants of the Church have passed away, leaving behind them but little that will remain to remind posterity of its debt of gratitude to them. Providence has dealt otherwise in the case of a few, whose works still live to attest, by their stability and strength, the noble generosity and solid wisdom of the generation which gave them birth. It is with one of these that we are now concerned.

Foremost among the great names of the Irish Church at this period of revival and fertility, both in hierarchical position and in the brilliancy of the results of his labours, stands that of Daniel Murray, Archbishop of Dublin. His pontificate extended, if we count the years during which he was Coadjutor to Archbishop Troy, from 1809 to 1852, and he was thus at the head of the affairs of the Church in Ireland for considerably more than a generation. His life bridges over

Mother Mary Teresa.

the space of time during which the most remarkable development of Catholicism in Ireland took place. He had known the days when it was inevitable for an Irish Catholic ecclesiastic to seek his education abroad ; and like so many of his most distinguished contemporaries, his theological training had been acquired at Salamanca. He had known the dangers of the days of 1 798, and is said to have barely escaped with his life, after his parish priest had been shot in his bed. He lived to see the Emancipation of Catholics by the exertions of O'Connell, and to protest with efficacy against the abortive attempt of the Government of Lord John Russell to revive the persecuting temper in England, on the occasion of the restoration of the Catholic Hierarchy in that country. When he died, in 1852, as full of years as of honourable labours for the service of the Master whom he loved so devotedly, he left behind him a diocese in which the amount of progress and increase which he had witnessed was little short of miraculous. We need not linger now on the number of churches which had been built out of the alms of the poor, the immense increase of schools, of religious institutions, of charitable associations, of educational establishments for the clergy and the laity alike ; our

A Great Archbishop. g immediate business lies with a part of the work of this great archbishop, which was probably as dear to his own heart as any other — the work which he accomplished in the foundation of the religious Institutes with which his name will be for ever connected.

In the share which, in various ways, he took in the foundation of the three Institutes of the Irish Sisters of Charity, the Sisters of the Institute of the Blessed Virgin, commonly known as the Nuns of Loretto, and of the Sisters of Mercy, Dr. Murray displayed, more almost than in any other of his great achievements, the singular combination of prudence and energy which was characteristic in him. The objects for which these Institutes were founded were not peculiar to Ireland, for the work of charity to the sick and the poor, and of the education of all classes alike, is a work which must be provided for in every portion of the Catholic world, and it is a work which has never been so successfully accomplished as when it has been generously placed in the hands of religious men and women specially devoted to the purpose. It was open to Dr. Murray to do as has been done elsewhere, and to import into his diocese bodies of foreign religious, who might become the nucleus round

IO

Mother Mary Teresa.

which a number of devoted souls might in time gather. Dr. Murray seems to have thought of this plan in the case of the Sisters of Charity, whose very name still shows the intention with which they were called into being ; but in this case, as in that of the other Institutes just named, he trusted ultimately to the prolific spiritual life of the Irish nation itself.

To reward this loving confidence, Providence furnished him with the associates and instruments of which he was in need, as it also furnished him with the material means which his great designs required. He himself had a very large share in the spiritual formation of those chosen souls, who were thus in a double sense his children. His own deep piety and lofty spiritual wisdom were thus elements in the great work which he left behind him, as essential as even his ecclesiastical zeal and sagacity. He was not only a great ruler in the Church, he was the father of a generation of saintly souls, few of which can have soared higher than himself in the regions of Christian perfection. He did not merely approve and allow of the enterprises conceived by others, though that is often the work of eminent servants of the Church. Dr. Murray was himself the conceiver of a large portion of the great undertakings which made his Archiepiscopate so memorable in the annals of Catholic Ireland.

It is somewhat saddening to reflect how many of the great servants of the Church, in each generation, pass away from memory within a comparatively short space of time from the end of their visible labours. No doubt, the time for the full glorifying of those who have ' instructed many to justice 3 is in the next world. But it is a duty, nevertheless, to ' praise men of renown, our fathers in their generation and as their example is so great a part of the contribution which they have brought to the building up of the sanctuary of God, it is certainly desirable that that example should be put on record within as few years as may be after their decease. No one has ever in these later times done more for the Church in England than the great Cardinal Wiseman, and yet his memoirs do not seem to have been yet begun. No one, certainly, has laid the Irish Church under a greater debt of gratitude than Dr. Murray, and yet we have of him only the funeral oration preached at his ' Month's Mind/ illustrated, happily, by very full notes, so as to supply in some measure the temporary wants of a more complete biography. 8 We shall use these notes without scruple for the slight notice which it is natural to give, at the beginning of the life of one of his most devoted spiritual daughters, to the memory of one to whom she owed not only, under God, her vocation, but the whole direction of the work to which she was called, and the training which she received for it, to be handed on to others after her. Daniel Murray is the true father of the work and the spiritual progeny of Frances Ball.

Dr. Murray was born at Sheepwalk, near Arklow, in April, 1768. His first education was received in Dublin from the lips of the famous Dr. Betagh, formerly a Jesuit, but who had been driven from his religious home by the suppression of the Society, and who afterwards led a long and laborious life in the metropolis of his country, the soul of all the Catholic movement there. A hard-working priest, a powerful preacher, a devoted instructor of youth and guide of souls, he became Vicar-General of the diocese of Dublin, but did not live to see the actual restoration of the Society which he loved so dearly,

s * Notices of the Life and Character of the Most Rev. Daniel Murray, late Archbishop of Dublin,' 8rc. By the Rev. W. Meagher, P.P. Dublin, 1853.

though his heart was always longing for it, and though he prepared many of those who were its first and best members after its restoration, for their entrance into it as soon as that was possible. Among these pupils of Dr. Betagh was the famous Father Kenny. Daniel Murray proceeded in due course to the College at Salamanca, at which so many of the clergy and bishops of Ireland were trained in sacred learning, until the time when the foundation and success of the great College of Maynooth supplied the country with a seminary for its future priests and bishops on its own soil. He was ordained priest in 1790. On returning to Ireland, he began his labours for the Church as curate in the parish of St. Paul, Dublin, and was afterwards stationed for a short time at his native place, Arklow. Here he endured the storm of the troubled times of 1798. The old priest, whose assistant he was, was murdered in his bed at night, Dr. Murray only escaping after having run the risk of his own life. Returning to Dublin, he attracted the attention and won the confidence of Dr. Troy, the Archbishop. It was by the choice of this prelate that he became Coadjutor in 1809, being consecrated on St. Andrew's Day of that year. The choice delighted the clergy as much as it afflicted himself.

The learned and eloquent preacher whose sermon we are more or less following, selects as the special characteristics of Dr. Murray in the discharge of his duties as bishop, first, his great industry and indefatigable laboriousness, then his singular prudence, then his gentleness, and finally, his most conciliatory and winning kindness to those outside the fold of the Church. As is so often found to be the case in great servants of God, his extreme gentleness and meekness were accompanied by a singular courage and firmness in the discharge of duty and in the maintenance of principle. Dr. Murray's fearlessness and resolution were shown especially in the important question of the Veto, which began to trouble the Church a few years after his elevation. The English Government had rendered great services to the persecuted Pontiff, Pius VII., and when he had returned in triumph and peace to Rome, it was proposed that he should reward these services by conceding to the Government of the king at least a Veto on the appointment of the Irish Catholic Bishops. This measure, however, was opposed by all the most loyal and intelligent servants of the Holy See in Ireland, and it required all their exertions to avert the calamity. In this vital struggle Dr. Murray was as much the champion in Ireland of the freedom of the Church as Dr. Milner in England. He was twice sent to Rome by the body of Irish Bishops to lay their remonstrances at the feet of the Vicar of Jesus Christ. As always, there were weak-kneed Catholics ready to assist the Government in its demands. The cause was in much danger, until Dr. Murray succeeded in persuading the authorities at Rome that the opposition to the measure was most strong and universal in Ireland itself. After his return, and before the final decision had been arrived at, he preached a very famous sermon in Dublin on the Good Friday of 1816, in which he appealed to the Catholics who were lending a helping hand to the enslavement of the Church. He compared such a policy to the binding of our Lord to the column before the scourging. ' To this bound and suffering Victim, I would now implore the attention of those misguided Catholics who seem willing to impose new and disgraceful bonds, not, indeed, on His Sacred Person, but on His Mystical Body, that is, His Church, which was ever more dear to Him than His personal liberty — more dear to Him even than His life. Does not St. Paul 4 assure us that Eph. v. 26, 27.