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This week’s missionary hero was an early pioneer in the quest for civil rights for racial minorities in the United States and in the Catholic Church. Her name was Elizabeth Clarisse Lange.Elizabeth was born in a Haitian community in Santiago de Cuba, Cuba, sometime in 1784. In the early 1800’s, Elizabeth made her way to the United States and eventually settled in Baltimore, Maryland.
In Baltimore at that time, there were some Protestant schools that opened to help educate African-American students, but they could not meet the demands of the ever-expanding free African-American population.
In Baltimore, Elizabeth met a Sulpician priest, Fr. James Nicholas Joubert, a Frenchman who had been a soldier before becoming a priest. He was responsible for teaching catechism to African American children, and he noticed they often had difficulty reading. So, he thought it would be a good idea to have women of color teach these children. When someone suggested Elizabeth Lange and Maria Balas, he approached them. The two women were operating a little school in their home at the time. The women agreed. However, the women not only wanted to teach, they wanted the opportunity to do so as religious sisters. But at that time, orders were not open to taking women of color.
Fr. James and Elizabeth together formed a new congregation that would be composed primarily of black-skinned women, and it was called the Oblate Sisters of Providence (O.S.P.). On July 2, 1829, Elizabeth and three other women – Rosanne Boegue, Maria Balas, and Almaide Duchemin – took their first vows. Elizabeth took the name “Sister Mary” and became the superior general of the new congregation.
The new group rented a house for the four sisters and 20 students. This school would eventually become known as St. Francis Academy, and it is still operating today.
The community grew despite experiencing poverty, racism, and plenty of hardships. In addition to basic education, the sisters also conducted evening classes for women, vocational and career training, and established homes for orphans and widows.
In 1832, when the community had 11 members, a cholera epidemic broke out I the city. Nobly, every sister volunteered to help nurse the sick, but only 4 were chosen, one of these being Mother Mary Lange.
Besides teaching, Mother Mary worked as a domestic in St. Mary Seminary to earn money for the community when one of the sisters died, and she served as mistress of novices for ten years.
Mother Mary Lange died on February 3, 1882. She was inducted in the Maryland Women’s Hall of Fame in 1991. Today, she is known in the Catholic Church as Servant of God Mary Lange.
