MARY ELIZABETH LANGE, VIRGIN AND FOUNDRESS - 3 FEBRUARY

 

ALL SAINTS CELEBRATED IN FEBRUARY

Saints celebrated on the 3rd of February

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SERVANT OF GOD MARY ELIZABETH LANGE, VIRGIN AND FOUNDRESS

Servant of God Mother Mary Elizabeth Lange OSP (1789-1882) was born Elizabeth Clarisse Lange in Santiago de Cuba in 1789. During the Haitian Revolution her family fled to Santiago de Cuba. There she received an excellent education. She left Cuba in the early 1800s and immigrated to the United States, settling in Baltimore, Maryland by 1813. In Baltimore, she met the Sulpician priest James Nicholas Joubert, who was a native of France, at church, who was looking for teachers for children of underprivileged background.

Fr Joubert found Mary Elizabeth Lange, Rosanne Boegue, Marie Balas, and Almaide Duchemin to work as teachers, who confided in him that they felt called to consecrate their lives to God and had been waiting for him to show them a way to serve him. Fr Joubert became their spiritual director and obtained the Archbishop's permission to found a new women's Order. Being from an affluent background, Mary Elizabeth Lange financed a larger part of the costs. These were the beginnings of the Oblate Sisters of Providence with the primary purpose of the Catholic education of girls.

On July 2, 1829, the four teachers took their first vows. Mary Elizabeth Lange adopted the name of "Sister Mary" and became the first superior general of the new community. The sisters wore a religious habit of a black dress and cape with a white cap. They started in a rented house with four sisters and twenty students. The school later became known as Saint Frances Academy, and is still in operation today in Baltimore.

Mother Mary Lange went to her eternal reward on February 3, 1882, and was buried in the Cathedral Cemetery. On May 28, 2013, Mother Mary Lange's mortal remains were solemnly exhumed and transferred to the home of the Oblate Sisters of Providence, where she was laid to rest in their chapel. In church art, she is usually pictured holding Rosary beads in her hand.

Sources: 

https://www.archbalt.org/mother-mary-elizabeth-lange/

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Elizabeth_Lange

https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/253758/servant-of-god-mother-mary-lange-and-the-rich-history-of-black-catholic-religious-orders