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Who
is Mother Margaret Mary Healy Murphy?
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| Mrs. Murphy | To say that Margaret Mary Healy Murphy, the Foundress of the Sisters of the Holy Spirit and Mary Immaculate, was an unusual woman may be an understatement. She was born in Ireland in 1833 and emigrated with her father to escape the ravages of the famine in that country. After her father's death, she joined some relatives in Matamoros where she met John Bernard Murphy whom she married in 1849. One Sunday morning Mrs. Murphy met a little Spanish-speaking girl wandering as though she were lost. The child could give no information about her family. Her need for food was easily apparent. Mrs. Murphy took her home and cared for her. No one ever came to claim the child in spite of numerous attempts to locate the family. Her name was Delphine. Years later it was to Delphine that Margaret Mary first confided her decision to work with the African American people in San Antonio. In 1867 there was an outbreak of yellow fever in Corpus Christi. Margaret Mary ministered to its many victims. Prior to her death, a Mrs. Delaney entrusted her daughter, Minnie, to the care of Mrs. Murphy, who later adopted Minnie along with her husband’s niece, Elizabeth (Betty) Murphy. Minnie grew up and entered the Congregation of the Sisters on the Incarnate Word and Blessed Sacrament in Victoria, Texas, taking the name Sr. Bernard, after her adopted father. Betty entered the Congregation of the Sisters on the Incarnate Word and Blessed Sacrament in Corpus Christ, Texas. On July 4, 1884, John Bernard Murphy, judge, member of Texas’ First Constitutional Convention, and the mayor of Corpus Christi, Texas, died.
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| John Bernard Murphy |
In 1887, Margaret Mary, a widow of some means, came to live in San Antonio, where she rented an apartment. On Pentecost Sunday, May 29 of that year, a letter from the United States bishops was read in St. Mary's Church. This letter changed her life. The letter, read by an Oblate priest – Fr. John Maloney, OMI - was a call from the American Bishops to Catholics in the South to respond to the pastoral and educational needs of the post-civil war African-American population. They had been utterly abandoned since their emancipation, no longer having even the minimal sustenance once provided to them by their slave-owners. As she left the church that Sunday, Margaret Mary was determined to devote herself and her means to the cause.
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| John Bernard and Margaret Mary
Healy Murphy | "Margaret Mary Healy-Murphy was destined to bring forth glorious fruits under the pains and self-sacrificing zeal of the Sisters of the Holy Ghost. Generations have called her blessed… Her vision and her spirit live on today in her sisters who continue to serve 'the marginalized, oppressed, economically poor people,'" (From
her eulogy, 1907)
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Beginnings
in San Antonio
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| St. Peter Claver |
In 1887, on the advice of Bishop John C. Neraz, Margaret Mary began to construct, from her own resources, a church and the first Catholic free school for African-Americans in the State of Texas. The facilities were located at the corner of Live Oak and Nolan Streets in San Antonio and were dedicated in honor of St. Peter Claver in September 1888. Shortly thereafter, she built a residence for the
priest who would serve the community.
Throughout the construction phase and for the first several years of the existence of St. Peter Claver Mission, as it was called, Mrs. Murphy suffered great indignities and persecution from those opposed to her efforts on behalf of “those” people. She battled the daily storms of criticism and prejudice, and her opponents incessantly tried to arouse discord. Under circumstances such as these, maintaining a steady teaching staff in her school became impossible. Once again she sought advice from the Bishop. This time he encouraged her to start a religious congregation in order to stabilize the work. She accepted the advice and on June 6, 1892, she and three other women became novices with the Sisters of St. Mary of Namur, where her blood sister was a member. One year later, on Friday, June 9, 1893, Mother Margaret Mary Healy-Murphy, Sister Mary Joseph McNally, Sister Mary Aloysius McMullen and Sister Mary Alphonsus Cronyn made their first vows in the convent of Our Lady of Light on Nolan Street, in the presence of Bishop Neraz. Thus, our congregation, Sisters of the Holy Ghost and Mary Immaculate came into being.
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| St. Peter Claver Church |
A number of the early members of the
young congregation did not continue. Whereupon Margaret Mary undertook her
first of four trips to Ireland (1896, 1899, 1902 and 1906) to recruit young
women willing to dedicate their lives to promoting the human dignity of those
who were the most neglected and marginalized in society.
On August 25, 1907, at the age of 74, Mother Margaret Mary died peacefully at the Nolan Street convent that she worked so hard
to build. The eulogy at her funeral described her work as “destined to bring forth glorious fruits under the pains and self-sacrificing zeal of the Sisters of the Holy Ghost.” Mother Margaret Mary Healy-Murphy, our foundress, was buried with her beloved husband in Holy Cross Cemetery in Corpus Christi, Texas.
At the time of her death Margaret Mary left 15 sisters and two postulants in our young community. Her ministry to the African-American and Mexican-American communities had clearly taken root in San Antonio, with our sisters also staffing Our Lady of Guadalupe School in Laredo and an orphanage in Oaxaca, Mexico. For a few years after Mother Margaret's death, our young congregation seemed to falter; records show no sign of expansion of ministries or of increase in the number of sisters. With the election of Sister Mary Evangelist Jennings as superior in 1909, new life began to emerge. During the next ten years, 27 new members were added. At the same time, schools for African-American students were opened in Dallas, Texas; Mobile, Alabama; Pine Bluff, Arkansas; Pascagoula, Mississippi and on the West side of San Antonio. Schools for Mexican and rural White students were started or staffed in Tabasco, Mexico; in Longview, Charlotte and Gonzales, Texas, and at Our Lady of Perpetual Help in San Antonio.
On August 25, 1938, our congregation received
from Rome its approbation as a congregation of pontifical rite.
Back
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on the Eastside
By 1920, it was evident that the Nolan Street property, the site of Mother Margaret's original foundation, had become inadequate to accommodate the now crowded elementary and secondary school, the church, the priest's house, and the motherhouse and novitiate of our Sisters. A site was purchased on the East side of the city where the motherhouse, including our novitiate, was built. This facility was dedicated in 1922. Extensions were added in 1928 and again in 1962. It is at this site, 301 Yucca Street, that the motherhouse of the Sisters of the Holy Spirit and Mary Immaculate is still located. During the 1920s and early 1930s expansion continued at somewhat slower pace but the ministries became more diverse. In addition to opening more schools in Mississippi, our congregation branched out to open schools in Louisiana, Oklahoma, Kansas, New York and Ireland. We also began to teach in a number of Mexican-American parishes in the Rio Grande Valley, in Little Flower, San Antonio and Little Flower, Pearsall, Texas. Back
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Renewal
of Religious Life
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| Margaret Mary Healy Murphy |
As the world and religious life changed in the 1960s, vocations were decreasing throughout the United States and Northern Europe. Popes, from Pius XII to Paul VI, called all religious congregations to a renewal of Religious Life. In response to that call, we held our special Chapter of Renewal in 1968. During several succeeding years, a great deal of effort and energy was expended in programs aimed at rediscovering the charism of Mother Margaret and in getting back to the original thrust of our congregation. This was a very painful time for most religious congregations, and our congregation was no exception. There was, of necessity, much letting go: letting go of some schools where we had served for years but which were not specifically focused on the poor and marginalized; letting go of other schools, particularly African-American schools, that were no longer feasible, either because of changes in the segregation laws or because there were no longer sufficient financial resources to sustain them; letting go of the house in Ireland, because there was no longer a sufficient number of vocations to warrant keeping it open; letting go of old ideas and practices that had become standard for the religious life into which we had been formed. In spite of the pain of this period, wonderful beginnings were taking shape. We began the work of reclaiming our congregational roots and the original charism of our foundress. By 1979, we adopted our Mission and Charism Statement which recommitted us to a deep faith and trust in God and to compassion for those who are marginalized and oppressed. Immediately the work of involving every member of our congregation in revising the Constitutions got underway. The Constitutions were formally approved by Rome in 1988. In the meantime, in 1985, the official title of the congregation had been changed to Sisters of the Holy Spirit and Mary Immaculate.
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| Sister Ferdinand teaching a chemistry
class | In ministry, also, new beginnings were taking shape. In 1970, our congregation completed a unique transition: the original foundation, Saint Peter Claver School, was changed from a large elementary-secondary school for African-American students into the first “alternative school”, for young people in crisis. It was the first alternative school ever to be accredited by the Texas Education Agency and the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools. It was renamed Healy-Murphy Center in memory of our foundress. This was quickly followed by similar efforts elsewhere on behalf of children and youth in crisis. By the mid 70s, Sister Rosario had opened Louis Infant Center in Houma, Louisiana for children who were abused or abandoned and we were also serving in Cassata Learning Center in Fort Worth. More recently we have expanded our ministry to three locations in Mexico and three in Zambia, Africa.
Back
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Journey continues...
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| Healy Murphy Center |
We celebrated the centenary of our founding in 1993 with celebrations in the parishes where we serve, in San Antonio, in Mt. Bellew, Co. Galway, Ireland and in Caherciveen, County Kerry, Ireland, the home of Margaret Mary Healy Murphy. An outcome of the centenary was our commitment to help revitalize the eastside of San Antonio. Corporately we collaborated with the Boerne Benedictine Sisters in the establishment of a counseling, prevention and outreach project or youth who are in danger of embarking on a life of crime. We also actively participate in grassroots organizations to promote job training, drainage, better housing, and education. We collaborate with organizations such as Merced Housing and Habitat for Humanity. We have joined many collaborative efforts with other religious congregations and groups to establish cooperative ventures in retirement, health care, responsible investments, housing, etc. We have also committed to the complete physical renovation of the original foundation, Healy Murphy Center, and to exert every effort to continue to provide programs there that will respond to existing pastoral and educational needs. We engage in education—alternative and regular, hospital and prison pastoral ministry, social justice issues, and parish and diocesan ministries. We began our second century, fewer in number than we once were, but fully committed to continue to minister to the marginalized and the oppressed. We are called “to be prophetic voices for change and transformation in a world of injustice and poverty.” Back
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