The Sisters of Charity will celebrate their 90th anniversary of presence in the New York area with a Mass of thanksgiving at the Immaculate Conception Center, Douglaston on Saturday, Oct. 25, at noon. Retired Rockville Centre, L.I., Auxiliary Bishop Emil A. Wcela will be the main celebrant.
St. Elizabeth Ann Seton, born in New York in 1774, founded this first congregation of women religious in the U.S. She based their common life on the rule of St. Vincent de Paul.
In 1849, four Sisters from Mother Seton’s community ministering in New York answered the call to open a school in the city of Halifax, Nova Scotia. By 1856, the Halifax community became an independent congregation now known as the Sisters of Charity-Halifax.
In 1924, a request for teachers from Msgr. Joseph McClancy, Superintendent of Schools in Brooklyn, brought the Sisters back to New York where they opened their first convent and parochial school in Our Lady of Angels parish, Bay Ridge.
Over the next 40 years, the Sisters of Charity would open 15 new schools in the N.Y./N.J. area.
While the congregation was widely spread all across Canada, with a membership of 1,600 in the 1960s, and immersed in the fields of education, health care and social work, there were more than 300 Sisters in the N.Y./N.J. area. Most of them were teachers.
Many people met the Sisters of Charity in their missions, all of which opened between 1924 and 1964:
Our Lady of Angels, Bay Ridge; Our Lady of Good Counsel, Staten Island; St. Sebastian, Woodside; St. Nicholas of Tolentine, Jamaica; St. Sylvester, East New York; Holy Saviour, Westmount, N.J.; St. Mary, Canton, N.J.; Sacred Heart, Riverton, N.J.; St. Barnabas, Bellmore, L.I.; Seton Hall H.S., Patchogue, L.I.; Our Lady Help of Christians, Midwood; Resurrection-Ascension, Rego Park; St. Aidan, Williston Park, L.I.; Our Lady of the Cenacle, Richmond Hill; Bishop Reilly H.S., Fresh Meadows; and St. Paul’s, Brooklyn.
Following the Second Vatican Council, some Sisters turned to social work as a way to minister their option for the poor. Others worked with immigrants and developmentally challenged adults and children. Women Helping Women opened to receive battered women and their children. The Maura Clark-Ita Ford Center in Brooklyn provided educational opportunities for poor immigrant women. Sisters could be found working in prisons and parishes, schools and shelters.
Today, an increasing number of Sisters, retired from full-time ministries, now volunteer in a variety of places that serve the needs of the poor. St. John’s Bread and Life, Bedford-Stuyvesant, has a cadre of Sisters who minister in the soup kitchen.
LifeWay Network, literacy programs, prisons and parish food pantries welcome the expertise and helping hands of Sisters who continue to answer the call to serve.
Currently, more than 350 Sisters of Charity-Halifax serve in five countries with 65 in the metropolitan area. Ministries today include spiritual direction, social services, health care, pastoral ministry and education.