Who we are
We are the sisters of Congregation of Jesus founded by an English woman, Mary Ward, who was born to a Catholic recusant family in 1585 in North Yorkshire, England. She belonged to a family of staunch faith and remained unwavering in the face of persecution. At the age of 15, Mary Ward felt called to religious life and thus began her extraordinary journey of finding God's will in all the events of her life even in adverse situations.
Initially Mary Ward opted for the strictest form of contemplative religious life determined to give herself totally to God and joined the Poor Clares in St. Omer. Gradually God revealed to her that a life of prayer and obscurity behind a convent wall was not what she was called to, she returned to London in 1609.
Inspired by her exemplary life many young women joined her and they engaged in apostolic activities disregarding the strict persecution laws against Catholics at the time in London. Later, the same year Mary realized that God was calling her to some form of religious life “more to His glory”. To discern what it was she left London for Flanders with her young companions and founded her first house at St Omer in 1609.Ignatian Legacy
In 1611, when at prayer, enlightenment came to her and she heard clearly the words: 'take the same of the Society' by which she understood the 'Society of Jesus' founded by St Ignatius of Loyola. The rest of her life was to be spent in developing a congregation of religious women on theIgnatian model; without cloister and women to be governed by women to be sent anywhere in the world by the Pope.
To the Papal authorities a congregation of apostolic, unenclosed women was conceptually not acceptable at a time when the reforms of the Council of Trent had forbidden new religious congregations and confined religious women to enclosure. However, Mary Ward would not compromise and preferred to face the dissolution of her Institute and disgrace rather than abandon her conviction of God's will for her.
Summoned to Rome in 1632 to face charges Mary was granted an audience with the Pope at which she declared: “Holy Father, I neither am nor ever have been a heretic”. She received the comforting reply: “We believe it, we believe it”. No trial ever took place, but Mary Ward was forbidden to leave Rome or to live in community.
In 1637 for reasons of health Mary was allowed to travel to England. She died during the English Civil War just outside York on 30th January 1645. She is buried in Osbaldwick Anglican Churchyard close by.
Her Tomb Stone and the Inscription on it proclaims to the World her deep Faith and conviction…………
