OUR FOUNDRESS
MOTHER MARY TERESA
TALLON
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Mother Foundress was born on
May 6, 1867, two years after the end of the Civil War, on a farm in the Mohawk
Valley near the city of Utica, New York in a hamlet called Hanover. She was the seventh of eight children born
to Bridget and Peter Tallon, both of whom had emigrated to the United States
from Ireland. They brought with them
the deep faith of their homeland as a heritage for their children. None of them could have received it more
eagerly than their next-to-youngest, Julia Teresa. The desire to belong totally to
God seems to have unfolded in her with the dawning of reason, though she had
no acquaintanceship with religious Sisters in her small rural mission
parish. Julia’s mother, like many other
good Catholic mothers, before and after, dismissed the idea of religious life
for her daughter. Yet, despite the
discouragement and disapproval at home, Julia was firm in her commitment to
follow a religious vocation from the age of twelve onward. |
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On April 30, 1887, at the age of
nineteen, Mother Foundress entered the Holy Cross Sisters at South Bend,
Indiana. For thirty-three years she
remained with the Sisters teaching a variety of subjects in Catholic schools. All the while God was preparing her for
her future work and enlightening her mind as to the nature of the mission He
would give her – the founding of a contemplative-missionary Congregation for
the streets and homes, to teach and counsel, and especially to reclaim lapsed
and uninstructed Catholics for the Heart of the Good Shepherd. |
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On the feast of the Assumption, August 15, 1920, when she
arrived in New York City to begin this work, the Parish Visitors of Mary
Immaculate were born. She had left
the Holy Cross Sisters after obtaining approval from the appropriate
ecclesiastical authorities. |
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Mother Mary Teresa’s entire
being was focused upon God and the mission He gave her. Everything else was insignificant beside
that one great reality of her life. Mother
called it “the cause” or “the original vocation,” because it came straight
from the Heart of her Beloved. This
became the whole point of her life and personality. Once when she was in the midst
of her most trusted collaborators, the pioneer members of the Community, she
said, “Now Mother Mary Teresa no longer exists—it is only Mother
Foundress!” She completely submerged
her own personal identity in favor of identity as Foundress; her human
personality was given over totally to the Divine mission. Her heart was beating as one with that of
John the Baptist: “He must increase; I must decrease.” |
Mother
Foundress with the Pioneer Sisters |
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Julia Teresa Tallon struggled
her whole life to reach that goal, employing every gift God had given her to
magnify His glory. Though quiet and retiring by
nature, she was strong-willed and courageous, as well as intelligent and
reflective. She was short of
stature. Her face was rounded and
pleasant, the face of one who would be friendly and thoughtful, approachable
and yet serious. Most people, though, remember
her for her eyes. They were dark and
bright, and variously described as penetrating, twinkling with wholesome amusement,
very kind, warm with understanding, seemingly able to read the hearts of
others. |
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Even as a young girl she was
seen to be magnetic, compelling and persuasive. People were drawn to her and held by her fervor and enthusiasm,
especially for the things of God.
Eventually this came to be focused on “the cause” - the “grand” and
“original” vocation for which she wanted to give herself utterly and be
consumed. She was open and frank in her
dealings with others, which sometimes got her into difficulties. But she was unfailingly kind, a partisan
and friend to the down-trodden, to sinners, to the poor and neglected, to the
troubled, to God’s “little ones.”
This she had learned from the heart of Christ. At the same time, she was
doggedly persistent, never giving up in her quest for the highest
values—sanctity for herself, for her Community, and for her “specials,” God’s
little ones. “Make every soul count!” “Never give up!” These were the mottoes she gave her Congregation for its
mission. |
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Her books, personal letters,
and numerous printed articles show a deeply loving religious Sister who was unflinchingly
staunch and loyal to the Church’s teaching, to the Holy Father, and to the
mission God had given her. She was
never afraid to be outspoken, especially when the Kingdom of God seemed
compromised by lack of zeal or pettiness.
She was a painter of word
images, inviting souls back home to the challenging and delightful life of
Catholic living and love. Her
scholarly agility was brilliantly shown in her report, The Confraternity of
Christian Doctrine: the First Decade of Achievement in the Archdiocese of New
York, which documented the numerous activities in which the Confraternity
engaged from 1902-1912. (CCD
included: home, hospital and prison visitation; religious instruction for
adults and children; a special program to instruct teachers and parents;
etc.) Mother’s 101 page paper was
“prepared for the National Catechetical Congress held in New York City,
October 3-6, 1936”…”by request of His Excellency, Most Rev. Edwin V. O’Hara,
D.D., Chairman of the Congress.” Although suffering disabling
illnesses during the last twenty years of her life, she carried on the
administration of the Congregation, giving no sign of her suffering to the
Community she so ably guided and nurtured.
In fact, very few of her dearly beloved Sisters had any idea of how
ill she was. She considered her human needs
to be insignificant compared to the needs of those whom we serve and of the
Community itself. She made heroic
efforts to rise and give her quarterly conferences to the Community. She conducted important meetings with
officials and Associates, journeyed to oversee Community concerns, and would
return again to her bed for much needed and nearly unknown periods of
rest. Considering that this was her
state for nearly twenty years, clearly God was the source of her strength: 1)
to extend the Congregation to eight dioceses, as well as to many temporary
missions, including one in the Dominican Republic; 2) to maintain voluminous
correspondence caused by the Community’s development; and 3) to direct a publishing department
that produced a monthly magazine and Community literature. Her spiritual energy was the
force that kept her going, the belief that God willed it, and this, of
course, was the power of God’s love. She often reminded her Sisters, “The love
of Christ impels us.” On February 10, 1954, Mother
Mary Teresa was found to be critically ill after falling in her room. It soon became obvious that this was to be
her last illness. Just before the
Anointing, she said in a strong, clear voice, “I thank God for the graces He
gave the original vocation and for sustaining it since 1920, and pray Him to
continue.” Of the vocation she said, “I
leave everything in God’s hands, who gave the wonderful vocation. He can give it to someone else as He gave it
to me—and more effective than in me … As for me, I’ll be glad to go to God
and under Him care for you all. He
loves you more than I do.” She was to
linger on this way for a month. On the evening of March 10,
1954, after extreme suffering borne with patience and love for the
Congregation, Mother Mary Teresa died just as the Sisters had finished
praying the Rosary around her bedside.
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A
Prayer |
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O Divine Lord, whose merciful love reaches to the ends of the earth, we thank you for inspiring the heart of Julia Teresa Tallon with the love of your own Heart. Through her you brought forth a new institute in the Church and called us to imitate the sacrificial mission of your Son, the Good Shepherd, who in steadfast union of heart with you and loving zeal for the most neglected of His little ones, gave his life to seek and save the lost and straying.
We humbly ask you to continue to expand the work you have begun in her. Fulfill her ardent longing to promote sanctity in each heart, to restore family life, calling all to full participation in the life of the Church and arousing the conscience of Your people in loving concern for the most neglected and spiritually abandoned in our midst.
May she who asked always – “What more can I do for God?” – find now new ways to glorify You. Grant, Lord, that she who loved and cared for the least of Your little ones on earth, may now be glorified by You who live and reign with Jesus Christ Your Son in the unity of the Holy Spirit, world without end. Amen. |
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