It started with a simple question: Who will teach the children of St. James Church?
After more than 15 years of instructing children at the Falls Church parish, the Sisters of Perpetual Adoration were called back to their motherhouse, leaving Father Amadeus Joseph van Ingelgem, then pastor, without a faculty for the upcoming academic year. Convent after convent declined his invitation to teach, until he traveled to the Philadelphia area. The Sisters, Servants of the Immaculate Heart of Mary agreed to help. Sept. 17, 1923, they began a 100-year run educating the students that continues today.
That service was commemorated 100 years to the day at a Mass celebrated by Bishop Michael F. Burbidge. A product of the sisters’ teaching in grade school, high school and graduate school in Philadelphia, Bishop Burbidge said the diocese thanks the sisters and rejoices “in knowing the number of lives and young people they have touched through their great charism of education and formation, but most especially through their faithful, dedicated and joyful witness of service.
“They have a special place in my heart,” he said. “So to be able to offer the Mass for them today, in God’s providence to bring me back together with them, it’s really been a blessing.”
The Mass was concelebrated by Fathers John Paul Heisler, parochial vicar; Peter M. McShurley, chaplain of Bishop O’Connell High School in Arlington with residence at St. James; Patrick L. Posey, former pastor and rector of the Cathedral of St. Thomas More in Arlington; and Paul D. Scalia, pastor and diocesan episcopal vicar for clergy.
“We thank God for the benefits that the Sisters, Servants of the Immaculate Heart of Mary brought to the parish, to the school for 100 years,” Father Scalia said in his homily, during which he explained how the sisters came to teach at St. James.
“As many of you know, we’ve been planning this for months. So, for months I’ve been saying to people, ‘The sisters have been here for a hundred years. For a hundred years the sisters have been here.’ Finally, one of the sisters said, ‘Father, different sisters have been here,’ ” he said to laughter from the congregation. “At the same time, in a sense, it’s the same IHM charism, spirit, generosity, service that has been here for a century. The same generosity that responded to the needs of the parish in 1923.”
The order’s arrival that year also marked its first expansion into Virginia. IHM sisters taught at St. Thomas More School in Arlington and St. Michael School in Annandale for approximately 50 years. They catechized thousands of people across Virginia, supporting sacramental preparation for children in surrounding towns reaching as far as Front Royal and Luray, according to the parish.
St. James has planned a yearlong celebration of the sisters, inviting photos and memories from school alumni. The celebration will conclude next September with the 20th Nun Fun Run, a fundraising race to benefit Camilla Hall, the sisters’ retirement home in Pennsylvania. At least 10 IHM vocations originated at St. James, according to the parish, including two who were present at the celebration: Sisters Marie Jeannine Dawson, who starts her 75th year of religious life next month, and Anne Marie Stegmaier.
Lucille Greer Maloney has fond memories of attending St. James School in the 1950s. She later married her husband at St. James. She also has seen the fruit of the sisters’ work as children instructed at the school grow up to volunteer in many parish ministries.
“It just fills my heart with joy to know that my community has been here for this long,” said Sister Kathryn Teresa Clemmer, St. James’ current principal. “I’m really proud, proud of my sisters, and I’m really humbled to continue on that legacy and tradition of Catholic education here at St. James.”
Sister Mary Ellen Tennity, general superior, was among two dozen sisters who attended the Mass and celebration. She called it humbling, “because we know we stand on the shoulders of our sisters who have gone before us.”
“Anyone who does this sort of ministry, we receive more than we give,” she said. “So rubbing shoulders with the people here and working with them as colleagues in the ministry, it strengthens our community life, it strengthens our prayer life, it allows us to really understand the nature of the church, which is the people of God.”
Schweers can be reached at [email protected].
