Mary Xavier Mehegan, S.C. was a Roman Catholic sister who founded the Sisters of Charity of Saint Elizabeth and opened New Jersey's first four-year college for women.
Mary Xavier Mehegan, S.C. was a Roman Catholic sister who founded the Sisters of Charity of Saint Elizabeth and opened New Jersey's first four-year college for women.
She was born Catharine Mehegan in Ireland in 1825, one of the ten children of Patrick Mehegan and Joanna Miles. Along with a sister, Margaret, she emigrated to the United States in 1842, settling in New York City. [1] In 1846 she joined the Sisters of Charity there, who had been founded by Mother (now Saint) Elizabeth Ann Bayley Seton in Maryland. A native of New York, in 1817 Seton sent sisters from the motherhouse in Emmitsburg, Maryland, to her native city. Taking the name by which she is now known, Catharine Mehegan joined the Sisters of Charity of New York and took her annual religious vows for the first time on 25 March 1847.
In 1853 James Roosevelt Bayley became the first Roman Catholic Bishop of Newark, with the Pro-Cathedral of St. Patrick serving as its seat. The step-nephew of Mother Seton, he sought a congregation of women religious to care for orphaned children and to operate parochial schools in the Diocese of Newark. Neither the Sisters of Charity in Emmitsburg, MD nor any of its offshoots was able to provide sisters for his diocese. He found five young women who wished to become Sisters of Charity and sent them to the Sisters of Charity of Cincinnati for a year of formation. Upon their return, the Sisters of Charity of New York agreed to help establish an order of Sisters of Charity in New Jersey, with the understanding that in a few years each Sister of Charity of New York would be free either to remain in New Jersey or to return to New York. Fortunately, Sister Mary Xavier Mehegan and Sister Mary Catharine Nevin cast their lot with the new congregation in New Jersey.
In 1858 Bishop Bayley requested of their superiors in Emmitsburg that the Sisters in New Jersey be established as an independent congregation, with Mehegan as Mother Superior. She and Sister Mary Catharine, along with five recruits for the new religious institute, took their vows on that 19 July, at that time the feast day of St. Vincent de Paul, whose Rule of Life they followed. This feast was to become the traditional day for the annual renewal of their vows held by the Sisters. Approval of the new institute was received on 29 September 1859 and Mehegan was formally appointed the first Mother Superior of the new congregation, to be known as the Sisters of Charity of Saint Elizabeth (in honor of the bishop's aunt and their foundress). Mehegan was to serve in this office until her death in 1915. At the time, they kept the religious habit and Constitutions of the Sisters in New York. Later in 1880, at the request of the bishop, they replaced the black widow's cap of Mother Seton with a black veil. [1] In less than a year the first Catholic hospital in New Jersey was opened at St. Mary's, Newark. [2]
On 2 July 1860, the motherhouse was removed to the old Chegaray mansion at Madison, which had recently been vacated by Seton Hall College. The Academy of Saint Elizabeth was opened the same year. [2] During the Civil War Sisters of Charity cared for soldiers on both sides in emergency hospitals set up at the train stations in Newark and Trenton.
Mother Xavier served as Mother General for 56 years. [3] Under her leadership, the Sisters opened parish schools, academies, hospitals, a day nursery, orphanages, a home for the incurably ill, and a residence for working women.
In 1899 Mehegan founded the College of Saint Elizabeth (renamed in 2020 as Saint Elizabeth University), which was the first four-year women's college in New Jersey. This was among the first women's colleges in the nation. Her Sisters moved beyond New Jersey to serve in Connecticut, Massachusetts and New York State by the time of her death on 24 June 1915. [4]
Elizabeth Ann Bayley Seton was a Catholic religious sister in the United States and an educator, known as a founder of the country's parochial school system. After her death, she became the first person born in what would become the United States to be canonized by the Catholic Church. She also established the first Catholic girls' school in the nation in Emmitsburg, Maryland, where she likewise founded the first American congregation of religious sisters, the Sisters of Charity.
Many religious communities have the term Sisters of Charity in their name. Some Sisters of Charity communities refer to the Vincentian tradition, or in America to the tradition of Saint Elizabeth Ann Seton, but others are unrelated. The rule of Vincent de Paul for the Daughters of Charity has been adopted and adapted by at least sixty founders of religious institutes for sisters around the world.
Anne Thérèse Guérin, designated by the Vatican as Saint Theodora, was a French-American saint and the foundress of the Sisters of Providence of Saint Mary-of-the-Woods, a congregation of Catholic sisters at Saint Mary-of-the-Woods, Indiana. Pope John Paul II beatified Guérin on 25 October 1998, and Pope Benedict XVI canonized her a saint of the Catholic Church on 15 October 2006. Mother Guérin's feast day is 3 October, although some calendars list it in the Roman Martyrology as 14 May, her day of death.
The Company of the Daughters of Charity of Saint Vincent de Paul, commonly called the Daughters of Charity or Sisters of Charity of Saint Vincent De Paul, is a Society of Apostolic Life for women within the Catholic Church. Its members make annual vows throughout their life, which leaves them always free to leave, without the need of ecclesiastical permission. They were founded in 1633 and state that they are devoted to serving the poor through the corporal and spiritual works of mercy.
The Sisters of Charity of Saint Vincent de Paul of New York, most often known as the Sisters of Charity of New York, is a religious congregation of sisters in the Catholic Church whose primary missions are education and nursing and who are dedicated in particular to the service of the poor. The motherhouse is located at Mt. St. Vincent in the Riverdale section of the Bronx. They were founded by Elizabeth Ann Seton in 1809.
The Sisters of Charity Federation in the Vincentian-Setonian Tradition is an organization of fourteen congregations of religious women in the Catholic Church who trace their lineage to Saint Elizabeth Seton, Saint Vincent de Paul, and Saint Louise de Marillac.
The Sisters of Charity of Saint Elizabeth are a Roman Catholic apostolic congregation of pontifical right, based in the Convent Station area of Morris Township, New Jersey, USA. The religious order was established in 1859 in Newark, New Jersey, following the example of Elizabeth Ann Seton's community that was founded in 1809 in Emmitsburg, Maryland.
A Time For Miracles is a 1980 American made-for-television biographical drama film chronicling the life story of America's first native born saint, Elizabeth Ann Bayley Seton. It was produced by ABC Circle Films for the American Broadcasting Company and telecast December 21, 1980, as a Christmas special. The film was created by Beverlee Dean and directed by Michael O'Herlihy. The script was written by Henry Denker with collaboration with Sister Mary Hilaire and filmed in Georgia. A Time For Miracles starred Ryan's Hope and Star Trek: Voyager actress Kate Mulgrew as Elizabeth Seton. John Forsythe and Lorne Greene also star.
The Third Order of Saint Francis is a third order in the Franciscan tradition of Christianity, founded by the medieval Italian Catholic friar Francis of Assisi.
The Sisters of Charity of Seton Hill were founded by Sister Aloysia Lowe. In 1870, she and sisters Blanche O'Keefe, Maria Theresa O'Donnell, Maria Kavanaugh and two novices were sent to western Pennsylvania from the Sisters of Charity of Cincinnati and began their work, founding and staffing schools. The sisters later expanded their work to include healthcare.
The Sisters of Charity of Cincinnati were founded in 1852 by Mother Margaret Farrell George, by the separation of the community from the Sisters of Charity in Emmitsburg, Maryland. the motherhouse of the community is at Mount Saint Joseph, Ohio.
The Sisters of Charity of Saint Vincent de Paul were founded on May 11, 1849, when the four founding Sisters of Charity arrived in Halifax, Nova Scotia, from New York City; this has been designated a National Historic Event.
Robert Seton was a descendant of the New York "aristocratic" Seton and Bayley families, Seton was also a monsignor in the Roman Catholic Church and titular archbishop of Heliopolis.
Mary Euphrasia Pelletier, born Rose Virginie Pelletier, was a French Roman Catholic nun, best known as the foundress of the Congregation of Our Lady of Charity of the Good Shepherd.
The Sisters of Christian Charity (S.C.C.), officially called Sisters of Christian Charity, Daughters of the Blessed Virgin Mary of the Immaculate Conception, is a Roman Catholic papal congregation of consecrated Religious Sisters. They were founded in Paderborn, Germany, on 21 August 1849 by Blessed Pauline von Mallinckrodt, sister of the highly regarded German politician Hermann von Mallinckrodt. Their original mission was for the care of the blind. Today, their main mission is teaching in Catholic schools and healthcare. Unlike some Religious Sisters, Sisters of Christian Charity are required to wear a traditional religious habit.
The Sisters of Charity of Our Lady of Mercy is a Roman Catholic religious institute founded by Bishop John England of the Diocese of Charleston in South Carolina, in 1829 as the Sisters of Our Lady of Mercy. In 1949 the word "Charity" was added to the congregation's name, in order to identify it more explicitly with others that follow the Rule of Life of St. Vincent de Paul. They came to serve throughout the Eastern United States. The members of the congregation use the postnominal initials of O.L.M.
The Franciscan Sisters of the Poor are a religious congregation which was established in 1959 as an independent branch from the Congregation of the Poor Sisters of St. Francis, founded in Germany by Blessed Frances Schervier in 1845.
The National Shrine of Saint Elizabeth Ann Seton is a U.S. religious site and educational center in Emmitsburg, Maryland, that pays tribute to the life and mission of Elizabeth Ann Seton, the first native-born citizen of the United States to be canonized by the Roman Catholic Church. It is both a minor basilica and a national shrine.
Catherine Josephine Seton was the daughter of Elizabeth Ann Seton, founder of the American branch of the Sisters of Charity. Catherine was the first American to join the Irish Sisters of Mercy.
| International | |
|---|---|
| National | |
| Other | |
