Mary Paulina Finn (January 1, 1842-February 28, 1935), known to the literary world by her pen name, M. S. Pine, was a Roman Catholic nun at the Georgetown Visitation Monastery in Washington, DC. [1] Known as Sister Paulina, she was a playwright, poet, and author, and she headed the school's English Department for 50 of her 68 years at Visitation. [2]
Besides her own accomplishments, Sr. Finn fostered the careers of Agnes Repplier, Eleanor Mercein Kelly, and of Harriet Monroe, founder of Poetry. [3] Kelly and Monroe were graduates of Georgetown Visitation Preparatory School, and Repplier was a devout Catholic who attended school in Philadelphia but knew Finn. [4] She maintained friendships with other prominent people including Visitation alumnae Bertha Palmer, Ida Marie Honoré, and Mary Logan Tucker, and priests William Henry O'Connell, the Cardinal-Archbishop of Boston, and poet-priest John Banister Tabb. [5] [6] She also knew the French Jesuit and anthropologist Marcel Jousse S. J., Paulist priest Walter Elliott, and Jesuit priest Thomas I. Gasson, all of whom were part of a large concelebration at her Golden Jubilee in 1919, along with Mary Logan Tucker. [7] [8] Her book about John Banister Tabb was positively reviewed by Frank Lebby Stanton, the first poet laureate of Georgia. [9]
One of her nephews was the Rev. William J. Finn, C.S.P., director of the Paulist Choristers, performing annually at the Metropolitan Opera and regularly on television. He presided at her funeral mass in the Visitation chapel. [10] She was survived by one sister living in Boston, and was buried on the grounds of Georgetown Visitation Monastery.
Theater historian Cecilia Young claimed that Finn wrote all of her works in pencil. [16]
The Order of the Visitation of Holy Mary, abbreviated VSM and also known as the Visitandines, is a Catholic religious order of Pontifical Right for women. Members of the order are also known as the Salesian Sisters or, more commonly as the Visitation Sisters.
Francis de Sales, C.O., O.M. was a Savoyard Catholic prelate who served as Bishop of Geneva and is a saint of the Catholic Church. He became noted for his deep faith and his gentle approach to the religious divisions in his land resulting from the Protestant Reformation. He is known also for his writings on the topic of spiritual direction and spiritual formation, particularly the Introduction to the Devout Life and the Treatise on the Love of God.
Agnes Repplier was an American essayist.
John Melchior Bosco, SDB, popularly known as Don Bosco, was an Italian Catholic priest, educator and writer of the 19th century. While working in Turin, where the population suffered many of the ill effects of industrialization and urbanization, he dedicated his life to the betterment and education of street children, juvenile delinquents, and other disadvantaged youth. He developed teaching methods based on love rather than punishment, a method that became known as the Salesian Preventive System.
Leonard Neale was an American Catholic prelate and Jesuit who became the second Archbishop of Baltimore and the first Catholic bishop to be ordained in the United States. While president of Georgetown College, Neale became the coadjutor bishop to Bishop John Carroll and founded the Georgetown Visitation Monastery and Academy.
Marie-Alphonse Ratisbonne, NDS was a French Jew who converted to Christianity and became a Jesuit priest and missionary. He later was a co-founder of the Congregation of Our Lady of Sion, a religious congregation dedicated to the conversion of Jews to the Christian faith.
Georgetown Visitation Preparatory School is a private college-preparatory school for girls located in the historic Washington, D.C. neighborhood of Georgetown. Founded in 1799 by the Order of the Visitation of Holy Mary, it is one of the oldest continuously-operating schools for girls in the country and the city as well as the oldest Catholic school for girls in the original Thirteen Colonies. It is located within the Archdiocese of Washington, but operates independently of the Archdiocese.
Maria Consolata Betrone, baptised as Pierina Maria Betrone, commonly known as Consolata Betrone, was an Italian Catholic mystic and nun of the Franciscan Capuchin order.
Maria Domenica Mazzarello, FMA was an Italian Catholic nun who co-founded the Salesian Sisters of Don Bosco.
The Monastery of the Visitation, Georgetown is a monastery of the Visitation Order in the District of Columbia, United States of America.
John Banister Tabb was an American poet, Roman Catholic priest, and professor of English.
Virgil Horace Barber was an American Jesuit.
Teresa Lalor, V.H.M. was an Irish immigrant to the United States, and a nun, co-foundress, with the Most Rev. Leonard Neale, S.J., the second Archbishop of Baltimore, of the Visitation Order's first monastery in the United States.
Eleanor Mercein Kelly was an American writer of fiction and nonfiction. She wrote one biographical study, The Chronicle of a Happy Woman: Emily A. Davison (1928), but is best known for her romantic fiction, most of which was set in exotic locales. She was widely traveled, and used her travels as inspiration for her novels. Four of her stories were adapted to film and one on Broadway.
Egidio Viganò was a Roman Catholic priest of the Salesians of Don Bosco, who was the 7th Rector Major of that Order from 1977 until his death in 1995. Although he was an Italian, he considered Chile as his second home country because he moved there when he was 19 years old. He was also confessor of Pope John Paul II, a prominent theologian and writer. During the first centenary of the death of Don Bosco (1988), Pope John Paul II dedicated to him the Apostolic Letter Iuvenum Patris : "To our beloved son Egidio Vigano, Rector Major of the Salesian Society on the First Centenary of the death of Saint John Bosco - John Paul II, Supreme Pontiff." He participated also in the Second Vatican Council.
Sister Consolata M. Kline was a religious sister of the Catholic Church and the Executive Director of the St. Elizabeth Hospital Medical Center.
Edvige Carboni was an Italian Roman Catholic from Sardinia who relocated to Rome and became well known among the faithful and religious alike for her ecstasies and angelic visions. She recorded an extensive spiritual journal in which she recorded appearances from Jesus Christ as well as saints such as Gemma Galgani and John Bosco. Carboni was said to have experienced demonic experiences and stigmata.
Mary John Thottam, also identified as Sister Mary Benigna, was an Indian Catholic nun and a poet who wrote in Malayalam. She authored two mahakavyas, Marthoma Vijayam and Gandhi Jayanthi, a poetry anthology, Lokame Yathra, and other works. Pope Paul VI honoured her with the Benemerenti medal in 1971.
This 1906 photograph shows Sister Mary Paulina Finn on graduation day.
A brief sketch of the life and virtues of our dear sister, Benigna Consolata Ferrero, deceased in our Monastery of the Visitation, B. V. M., of Como. Lombardy, September 1, 1916 ... Translated from the Community circular of Como by M. S. Pine, pseud.