MARY WARD, VIRGIN AND FOUNDRESS

MARY WARD, VIRGIN AND FOUNDRESS - 30 JANUARY

VENERABLE MARY WARD, VIRGIN AND FOUNDRESS

Venerable Mary Ward was born Joan Ward on January 23, 1585 in Mulwith, West Riding of Yorkshire, at a time of great conflict for Roman Catholics in England. For five years she lived with and was educated in Latin by her maternal grandmother, Ursula Wright, at Ploughland Hall, Welwick, who had been imprisoned for fourteen years for the "exhalation of the Catholic religion."

In 1595 her family home at Mulwith was burnt down in an anti-Catholic riot; the children, who were praying, were saved by their father. They went to live at the family's manor house, Newby until due to further anti-Catholic sentiment they were forced to move again. Mary took first Communion in Harewell, under the care of Mrs Ardington, daughter to Sir William Ingleby of Ripley, on September 8, 1598. In 1599 she moved to the house of Sir Ralph Babthorpe at Osgodby, North Riding of Yorkshire, yet another relation and here expanded her education to include the French, Italian and German languages.

In 1609, at the age of 24, she experienced the voice of God directing her towards a religious life (Glory Vision). She heard "Glory, Glory, Glory" while she was sitting and combing her hair. She left England in order to enter a monastery of Poor Clares at Saint-Omer in northern France; she then moved to the Spanish Netherlands as a lay sister. In 1606 she founded a new monastery of the Order specifically for English women at nearby Gravelines, doing so with much of her own dowry.

Her activities led to the founding of the Congregation of Jesus and the Institute of the Blessed Virgin Mary, better known as the Sisters of Loreto. After opening houses all around Europe, in 1637, with letters of introduction from Pope Urban VIII to Queen Henrietta Maria of France, Mary returned to England and established herself in London. There she and her companions established free schools for the poor, nursed the sick and visited prisoners. In 1642 she set up a community school in Hutton Rudby, the home of cousin Sir Thomas Gascoigne, and then travelled to stay with the Thwing family at Heworth, near York.

Mary died at Heworth Manor, on January 20, 1645 (old calendar) during the English Civil War. She was declared venerable by Pope Benedict XVI on December 19, 2009. There is now a network of around 200 Mary Ward schools worldwide.

Source: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Ward_(nun)

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