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Source: The Bulletin

Sisters of Mercy, Catholic Encyclopedia

Sisters of Mercy have been serving in North Carolina close on to ninety years
1951, The Bulletin.
Belmont, NC.

In 1862, an urgent appeal was made to the Sisters of Our Lady of Mercy in Charleston, SC., to rush to the assistance of the city of Wilmington, NC, which was stricken with an epidemy of yellow fever. Father Thomas Murphy, the pastor, and at one time the only priest in North Carolina, was himself a victim of the plague.
As the result of their work of mercy and charity the Sisters, endeared themselves to the people of Wilmington, and were bade farewell with reluctance when they returned to their home in Charleston.
At the Second Plenary Council of Baltimore in 1866, the Vicariate Apostolic of North Carolina, was erected. Father James Gibbons, of Baltimore, who later became Cardinal Gibbons, was appointed Vicar Apostolic. Upon his arrival in Wilmington, he found an impoverished South, its mills and factories closed, its farms laid waste, and its people disheartened. Race riots were of frequent occurrence. In fact, on the very night of his arrival there was a torchlight procession of black people through the streets.
Father Gibbons saw the urgent need for Catholic schools and requested Sisters from the community at Charleston. Three Sisters were sent to establish the new mission. People gathered in crowds on street corners to gaze in amazement at the Sisters and their religious habits.
Immediately upon their arrival the three Sisters began the work of instructing children and of visiting patients in the local hospital. Money was needed for the care and relief of charity patients. The Mayor of Wilmington, Silas Martin, having been approached in order to obtain assistance, gave the Sisters a sum each week to be used for the need of the poor.
The fist postulant to be received into the young community, and also the first to die, was Miss Margaret Price, a sister of the famed "Tar-Heel Apostle," Father Frederick Price, co-founder of Maryknoll.
In 1872, the Wilmington community became a foundation separate from the Charleston House. In the same year, Bishop Gibbons became Bishop of Richmond, and although his visits to his "children in Wilmington" were infrequent, he sent them many letters of encouragement and continued his financial assistance. In one letter he wrote: "Though my calls are numerous and means not colossal, I can never forget the cherished home, my own creation, whose children prosecute the good work after their father was snatched from  them."
When the Sisters planned to establish their first branch house in Western North Carolina, Bishop Gibbons was dubious about the venture, but consented because he felt that it would give the Sisters an opportunity to get away from the swampy lowland in which they were then located. To pay for the equipment in this new school at Hickory, the Sisters saved by using one fire and one lamp at night. Finally, this house was closed because of the impossibility of securing a priest to minister to the community.
Other places were considered as sites for a permanent foundation, but for various reasons were not found suitable. In 1891, Bishop Leo Haid, Abbot of the Benedictine Monastery at Belmont, NC, and Bishop of North Carolina, advised the Sisters that there was a valuable piece of property for sale between the monastery and the city of Belmont. After much negotiating, the property was purchased and a frame building was erected.
When the Sisters arrived at their new home late on summer afternoon, they found to their dismay that as yet no doors had been hung in the building. In the midst of their discussion about preparation for the coming night, several Monks from the monastery arrived with supper for them. The Benedictines continued to supply food for the Sisters for several days.
 Up to this time, the Sisters still retained the habit of the Sisters of Our Lady of Mercy of Charleston. In 1893, they adopted the habit of the Mother McAuley Sisters of Mercy but they did not become officially affiliated with that Order until 1812.
At home, the community has grown from the original three Sisters in 1869 to one hundred and thirty-three Sisters in 1951. The Sisters of Mercy, as is characteristic of their labors, are engaged in caring for the poor, the sick and the ignorant in the State of North Carolina.
In their two large hospitals, Mercy Hospital, Charlotte, and St. Joseph's Hospital, Asheville, hundreds of charity patients have been given the same care and consideration as provided for paying patients. A training school for nurses is operated in connection with Mercy Hospital in Charlotte. The Sisters also visit the poor and sick in their homes. The needy of Charlotte will long remember the charity of Sister Benedict, who distributed food and clothing among them.
St. Leo's Military School for small boys, located near the Mother-house in Belmont, fills a great need in this area since there is no other Catholic boarding school for young boys between Northern Virginia and Georgia.
Besides teaching on all levels of education from kindergarten  through junior college, the Sisters travel miles on Saturdays and Sundays to do catechetical work. They conduct vacation schools during the summer months.
Numerous requests are received from pastors asking that Sisters be sent for their schools. Many of these requests have to be refused because of the lack of a sufficient number of Sisters. Vocations are increasing in number, it is true, but not in numbers to supply the demand. The hospitals plead, " We need more Sister nurses," the schools urge, " Mother, send us more teaching Sisters." The field is ripe to the harvest, but more laborers are needed.
The present Superior of the Sisters of Mercy of Belmont is Reverend Mother M. Immaculate, a native of Savannah, Ga. Her Council is composed of Mother M. Juliana, Mother Assistant; Mother M. Benignus, Burser, and Mother M. John, Mistress of Novices.
Gradually the Sisters were able to open schools in nearby town, and soon hospitals were established. After their gallant services in nursing flu patients in the government hospital in Wilmington in 1918, each Sister received a letter from the government stating: " You risked your life as truly as any soldier on the field of battle."
An orphanage for girls was erected on the grounds of the Mother-house at Belmont. Father Price founded an orphanage for boys near Raleigh. The first children admitted were two boys found starving on the streets of Raleigh, and a third boy sent to the Sisters by the courts.
In 1946, the Belmont Community undertook its first foreign mission at the request of the Bishop of Guam. Three Sisters, left for the South Pacific in the fall of that year to open a native novitiate and a school. Today there are a Guam forty-five Sisters, who have four missions, two schools, and do catechetical work.

Source: The Bulletin

"Envy is a sadness which we feel on account of the good that happens to our neighbor.

Envy my children, follows pride; whoever is envious is proud. See, envy comes to us from Hell; the devils having sinned through pride, sinned also through envy, envying our glory, our happiness. Why do we envy the happiness and the goods of others? Because we are proud; we should like to be the sole possessors of talents, riches, of the esteem and love of all the world! We hate our equals, because they are our equals; our inferiors, from the fear that they may equal us; our superiors, because they are above us. In the same way, my children, that the devil after his fall felt, and still feels, extreme anger at seeing us the heirs of the glory of the good God, so the envious man feels sadness at seeing the spiritual and temporal prosperity of his neighbor.

We walk, my children, in the footsteps of the devil; like him, we are vexed at good, and rejoice at evil. If our neighbor loses anything, if his affairs go wrong, if he is humbled, if he is unfortunate, we are joyful. . . we triumph! The devil, too, is full of joy and triumph when we fall, when he can make us fall as low as himself. What does he gain by it? Nothing. Shall we be richer, because our neighbor is poorer? Shall we be greater, because he is less? Shall we be happier, because he is more unhappy? O my children! How much we are to be pitied for being like this! St. Cyprian said that other evils had limits, but that envy had none. In fact, my children, the envious man invents all sorts of wickedness; he has recourse to evil speaking, to calumny, to cunning, in order to blacken his neighbor; he repeats what he knows, and what he does not know he invents, he exaggerates. . . .

Through the envy of the devil, death entered into the world; and also through envy we kill our neighbor; by dint of malice, of falsehood, we make him lose his reputation, his place. . . . Good Christians, my children, do not do so; they envy no one; they love their neighbor; they rejoice at the good that happens to him, and they weep with him if any misfortune comes upon him. How happy should we be if we were good Christians.

Ah! my children, let us, then, be good Christians and we shall no more envy the good fortune of our neighbor; we shall never speak evil of him; we shall enjoy a sweet peace; our soul will be calm; we shall find paradise on earth."

Source: The Blessed Curé of Ars in His Catechetical Instructions, 1951

Prayer for Lent: O Lord who, for our sake, didst fast forty days and forty nights; give us grace to use such abstinence that, our flesh being subdued to the spirit, we may worthily lament and acknowledge our wretchedness, and may obtain perfect remission and forgiveness of Thee, the God of all mercy, who livest and reignest with the Father and Holy Ghost, one God, world without end. Amen

Saint Katharine Drexel, Holy Name Cathedral, Raleigh NC ©CAPG

Saint Katharine Drexel in North Carolina

Quotes from Saint Katharine Drexel:

• "The patient and humble endurance of the Cross - whatever nature it may be- is the highest work we have to do."
• "Ours is the Spirit of the Eucharist, the total gift of self."
• "The Eucharist is the never ending sacrifice. It is the Sacrament of Love, the supreme love, the act of love."
• "My sweetest Joy is to be in the presence of Jesus in the Holy Sacrament. I beg that when obliged to withdraw in body, I may leave my heart before the Holy Sacrament. How I would miss Our Lord if He were to be away from me by His presence in the Blessed Sacrament!"
  

"The opening chapter of the rule admirably defines this twofold purpose of the life of a Sister of the Blessed Sacrament: "The object of the Institute is the honor and service of Our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament. The sisters admitted to this religious congregation, besides attending particularly to their own perfection, which is the principal end of all religious orders, shall, by an apostolate of prayer and work, zealously endeavor to procure through Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament living temples for His Divinity amongst the Indian and colored races. To attain this end the sisters admitted to this religious congregation shall consecrate themselves, body, soul and spirit, to the service of their Eucharistic Lord by their twofold apostolate, and feel convinced that even if they were to perform heroic acts of virtue, they would only be doing their duty; that is, they would be conducting themselves as it is meet and fitting for the honor of Him who has given Himself entirely to them." (...)

Devotion to Jesus in the Holy Sacrament is the great central devotion of the sisterhood. The rule says, "Jesus really present in the Holy Eucharist shall be the constant object of their affection. They shall often reflect, on the infinite charity displayed for us in that ever adorable Sacrament, and by frequent visits every day, pay assiduous court to their Heavenly Spouse on His throne of love, uniting their acts of adoration, prayers and thanksgiving, to those of the angels who continually attend Him in the tabernacle. In all their sufferings and anxieties, in all their fears, afflictions and temptations, they shall seek comfort and consolation at the foot of the altar. They shall endeavor to model themselves on the gentleness, humility, obedience and annihilation of Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament. The practical rule of their conduct should be, what does our Lord Jesus Christ want of me at this moment? In this action is there anything for His service, for His glory? What would our Lord do on such or such an occasion?" (...)

"The Feast of the Purification following witnessed the opening of "Holy Providence House." In an incredibly short time the building was filled to its utmost capacity-one hundred and fifty children. The majority are girls, whom the sisters keep until their twenty-first year. The boys, when they have reached the age of twelve, are transferred to industrial or trade schools. The girls receive a good common-school education, the larger ones spend one-half day in school work, the other half in domestic employment. Some take a course in scientific dressmaking; the steam laundry instructs others in all the details of fine laundry work; while the bakery and cooking classes afford instruction to an equally large number. The aim is to give the girls a good, solid English education, and a thorough knowledge of all the branches of domestic economy." American Ecclesiastical Review