U is for Usurline

(Update:  My husband and I are flying to New Orleans on Wednesday and returning Sunday after a family-type get-together.  Assuming the number of days in April, like the letters in the alphabet, remain the same, a bit of double-posting should balance out. Am I excited about going?  YES!  Am I as organized as I should be? No.  I doubt that I'll be able to keep up with comments but will catch up later.  I really want to read the posts for the juiciest part of the alphabet.)
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As I wrote in a previous blog, my great-grandmother, my grandmother's mother on my father's side, came to the United States from Spain as a child.  Abraham Lincoln was president of the United States. When her parents died in a yellow fever in New Orleans, my great-grandmother, about six years old, had to fend for herself.

Ursuline nuns found her begging on a street corner in the French Quarter, probably across from what was then an open air meat market and is now a collage of vendors.  The nuns brought her to their convent on Esplanade Street, not far from the Quarter, in their carriage.  She didn't remain there, but I'm grateful the Sisters got her off the street and re-directed her life. Actually, I'm very, very grateful.

The Ursuline Sisters were the first Catholic nuns to come to the Americas (North, South, and Central America).  In 1689,Mother Marie of the Incarnation, two other nuns and a Jesuit priest left France for Canada.  Today, there is an Ursuline convent in Quebec City, Canada, that is the oldest educational institution for women in North America.

In 1727, 12 Ursuline nuns from France landed in what is now New Orleans, Louisiana.  They were known in the colony as Filles du' Casket or 'casket girls' because of the wooden cases which contained their possessions.  They instituted a convent and school in New Orleans.  Ursuline Academy New Orleans is the oldest continually operating Catholic school in the United States and the oldest girls' school in the United States. The nuns influenced culture and learning in New Orleans by providing an exceptional education for girls. (Wikipedia)

The nuns also ministered to the sick.  In 1727, New Orleans was a muddy, flat colony where inhabitants lived in wretched conditions.  Sister Francis Xavier became the first pharmacist in what is now the U.S. when she provided herbs for the sick from herbal gardens she had planted at the convent.

The old convent building survived 18th century fires and is the oldest building in the Mississippi River Valley.  It is also the only remaining building from the original colony.  The nuns have a new convent and chapel on State Street in New Orleans.

Today, the Ursuline Sisters are active in 36 countries, including the U.S., and continue to work to provide educational opportunities and minister to those in need.

A prayer of the missionary sisters of St. Charles, Honduras: 

To have hope

Is to believe that history continues open

To the dream of God and to human creativity. 

To have hope

Is to continue affirming

That it is possible to dream a different world,

Without hunger, without injustice,

Without discrimination. 

To have hope

Is to be a courier of God

And a courier of men and women of good will,

Tearing down walls, destroying borders,

Building bridges. 

To have hope

Is to believe in the revolutionary potential of faith,

Is to leave the door open

So that the Spirit can enter and make all things new. 

To have hope

Is to begin again as many times as necessary. 

To have hope

Is to believe that hope is not the last thing that dies. 

To have hope

Is to believe that hope cannot die,

That hope no longer dies. 

To have hope

Is to live.

The old Usurline Convent