Posted on 12/17/2008 1:40:26 PM PST by NYer
Sad news from the pages of this morning's New York Times:
Behind the red-brick walls encircling the Convent of Mercy in Brooklyn, generations of nuns have taught the illiterate, sheltered the homeless and raised orphans. They are known as the Walking Sisters, ministering in the community as well as inside their convent.Read on for more. Also, check out the poignant slide show of pictures at the Times link.
Now, after 146 years, it is time for the small band of sisters, most of them retired, to walk away from the convent. The leadership of their order, the Sisters of Mercy, decided to shutter the place and scatter the sisters to other homes and nursing facilities after realizing it would cost more than $20 million to fix serious structural and accessibility problems in the fortresslike building on Willoughby Avenue in Fort Greene.
This has been a season of heartbreak and anger for these women, who thought the motherhouse would be their last home and the sisters their constant companions. Now they, the rescuers of lost children, feel like orphans themselves.
“It kind of hurts in a lot of ways,” said Sister Francene Horan, who came to the motherhouse in 1950 to teach kindergarten. “A building is one thing. This is a home, the place you knew would give you a place to stay. It’s like saying your parents died and you don’t have a home anymore.”
In a ritual that was unthinkable a year ago, they gather regularly as their numbers dwindle to bid goodbye to one another, and to an entire way of life — the busy convent and its shared days of work, prayer and laughter.
The Sisters of Mercy, known as the Walking Sisters because working outside the convent was unusual for nuns in the 19th century, have been in Brooklyn since 1855, when five young nuns from Manhattan answered Bishop John Loughlin’s call to work with the poor and sick. They went from the ferry at Fulton Landing to the nine-room convent of St. James parish on Jay Street, where they lived and worked.
Legend has it that five boys were left in their care one day, not an uncommon occurrence during a time when illness often claimed the lives of work-weary immigrant parents. As the nuns’ work grew along with their reputation, they moved in 1862 to the much larger quarters of their present convent, in what was then a solidly Irish neighborhood.
Thousands of children came to live with the sisters over the decades. Rather than fend for themselves as ragamuffins, they lived in tidy dormitories, supervised by two nuns and a helper. In the chapel, an ornate sanctuary of stained glass and gleaming marble, the youngest had a place of honor at the front, sitting in pews that were smaller than the rest.
Mary Margaret McMurray was almost 6 years old when she and her sister arrived at the orphanage after their parents died of influenza in 1917. She stayed until she graduated from high school and took a job as a secretary at an insurance company.
“The convent was so big,” said Ms. McMurray, now 97 and living in Queens with her daughter, herself a Sister of Mercy. “And there were so many children there. I had a lot of company. But it was very pleasant.”
The nuns taught her a lot, she said, and not all the lessons were found in books. “They taught me to be a positive person,” she said. “And of course, religion, too.”
Ping!
btt
Couldn’t they have at least found a place where the ladies could go on living together. Very sad.
This is very sad.
I’ll bet some “private investor” shows up and repair it and turns it into a gay nightclub or something. /sarc
Very sad. I had sad news yesterday and more VERY sad news again today. I don’t want anymore sad news.
How could it possibly cost 20 million dollars to repair their convent???? They could build an entirely new facility anywhere in the country for a fraction of that amount.
The chapel is beautiful. I hope it’s not razed.
My thoughts as well. Everything runs it’s course and I can understand that the church may have decided it couldn’t invest $20 million to repair a large facility that wasn’t likely to be fully utilized again. However, I would think that they would feel they owe those women who’ve given their lives to the cause of the church the chance to live out their lives in a modicum of comfort with their sisters.
This wouldn’t have been the result of that scam that guy ran ....or would it?
I cannot believe they will let these nuns go and no doubt...destroy the building after. There are enough Catholic Churches and parishes that could all give so much $$$ to keep this place going. There is certainly enough money to pay out on all these lawsuits...why would they toss out a handfull of elderly nuns who have done nothing but good for others all this time. Someone is screwy. Someone is not thinking. Someone makes me sick whomever it is. These nuns should be able to live out the rest of their lives in the place where they did so much good and the memories fill the halls. I hope someone can help them. Where are the rich? Where are all the doo gooders?
“We dress like any other woman now,” Sister Mary Joseph said. “But every now and then you see someone who asks you, ‘Are you a sister?’ ”
This is their mother house!
The courtyard at the motherhouse, where nuns lived to work with the poor and the sick.
Those nuns still there are mostly older. Outside their rooms, wheelchairs line the hallway next to a statue of Jesus.
There's that Catholic community down in Florida that sounds great. I dunno’ but that building is magnificent and you could go to Mass every day and Eucharistic Adoration in the evenings. What a beautiful way of life.
“How could it possibly cost 20 million dollars to repair their convent???? They could build an entirely new facility anywhere in the country for a fraction of that amount.”
Three words: New York City.
There are a lot of big, solid, empty convents in the U.S. Even in Tulsa! Some are empty because of the decline of particular religious orders, others because populations have shifted.
Now, the very wealthy (it's in Frontenac, you know) have subdivided the land, knocked down the house and you'd never know it was one of the loveliest places to walk and be still with our Lord. I miss that part of my life. Everyone needs a place to get away from the world and idle distractions and just rest in God's sweet presence.
Somebody should speak up and try to save this — there are a lot of folks who would feel as if they'd won the lottery if they could combine a life of work and worship.
Unions and environmentalists have been tying all kinds of regulations to repairs and upgrades of buildings. Everything from recycled material requirements to ADA rules to rates that must be paid and massive permitting fees. It has probably gotten so bad in that state that it is cheaper to vacate and tear down that rebuild.
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