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September 6, 2024By Sister Maria Delaney, SNDdeN
Read by Sister Marna Rogers, SNDdeN, at the anniversary Mass Aug. 24 at Notre Dame du Lac Assisted Living facility in Worcester
Whenever family and friends gather for a happy occasion, it is memorable. Today we come together to celebrate hundreds of years of life among the Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur. Your presence here enriches us.
You know us as a group of women who have maintained the legacy of two very strong women, Julie Billiart and Francoise Blin de Bourdon, who followed Jesus by ministering to women and girls in the aftermath of the French Revolution. Our mission as Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur is to proclaim God’s goodness and we have lived our vocation with full intention.
2024 is a special year marking many milestones in our history. We stand on the shoulders of giants who opened doors for us to forge through.
From ministering in Alaska and with the fur traders in the Pacific Northwest to southern Africa, from Japan to Latin America and the Amazon rain forest, and straight up through the heart of Europe, we saw global history unfold around us. We did more than survive, we thrived and have touched the lives of several million people through our schools and outreach ministries among people who wanted a better life for their families.
Our congregation ministers on five continents. Through the years, many times our sisters endured primitive conditions, even in the U.S. working among those made poor in very abandoned places.
Our beginnings in 1804 coincided with Napoleon’s rule. In our archives, we have a signed letter from him allowing us to become a teaching order. Our Sisters lived in proximity with his battlefields and endured harassment from his soldiers.
In 1840, we arrived in the U.S., in Cincinnati, and the sisters in Belgium were concerned [about whether] this country that was only about 80 years old was civilized enough to accept our Sisters.
It is 175 years since we arrived in Boston in 1849 to begin our educational ministries in the North End of Boston. We arrived in Chicopee in 1867 and in Worcester in 1872 and then spread throughout New England. We established schools in many of the mill towns, among the immigrants and the working class, and, very importantly, when the population moved into the suburbs, we continued our ministries in the cities. In the beginning we were famously harassed by the Know-Nothing party and we met major anti-Catholic opposition.
The American Civil War, World War I and World War II each reverberated around our sisters. In Belgium, both world wars were fought among the Belgian people. In this [year] of commemoration of the 80th anniversary of D-Day, we also remember nine of our sisters who were killed during WW II. Our Motherhouse in Namur took a direct hit by a misdirected American bomb in May 1941.
Our Sisters were and still are in many countries with active civil wars, living amid great dangers. We are approaching the 20th anniversary of the assassination of Sister Dorothy Stang in February 2005. She was targeted for her work among the Amazon farmers. She will be honored in Rome next January as a martyr, the first American woman holding this honor.
One of our sisters was kidnapped in Nigeria and held for ransom; she was subsequently released without the ransom. Our Sisters have been arrested on occasion and evicted from ministries during “clerical clashes,” the most famous clash being our removal from Amiens, France, and the relocation of our motherhouse to Namur, Belgium. We now speak of this proudly as Julie and Francoise held their ground and preserved the unity of our congregation.
2024 marks 125 years since we opened Trinity College, now Trinity Washington University in D.C. – the second oldest Catholic women’s college in the U.S.
It is 130 years since our Belgian Sisters opened schools in what is now the Democratic Republic of Congo.
It is 105 years since we began Emmanuel College, the oldest Catholic women’s college in New England.
The property on which we are standing [on Plantation St. in Worcester] was purchased quietly because of the anti-Catholic sentiment at the time.
It is 100 years since we opened our schools in Belmont, California, and it is 100 years since we arrived in Japan in 1924 in the aftermath of a major earthquake. Our American Sisters were incarcerated there during WW II.
This is truly an anniversary year! You can see that we had very busy centuries!
I would like to conclude with our Notre Dame de Namur Mission Statement which is at the heart of our charism:
Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur, women with hearts as wide as the world, make known God’s goodness and love of the poor through a Gospel way of life, community and prayer.
Continuing a strong educational tradition, we take our stand with poor people, especially women and children, in the most abandoned places.
Each of us commits her one and only life to work with others to create justice and peace for all.
We want each of you present here, and those who remain closest to us, to know that we couldn’t have done it without your care, concern and love. So, at this time of celebration, we say thank you to each of you for being an integral person in our one and only life!
– Sister Maria Delaney is a member of the leadership team of the United States East-West Province of the Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur and for 12 years was a member of the congregational leadership team in Rome.
