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Mother Mary Elizabeth Lange
We celebrate the 
life and work of Mother Mary Elizabeth Lange whose memorial of death was February 3. Mother Lange, along with Sulpician priest Father James Hector Joubert, founded the Oblate Sisters of Providence. She was born around 1784 and died February 3, 1882.
Mother Lange was a native of the Caribbean. In the early 1800s she settled in the United States eventually, by the Providence of God, finding her way to Baltimore, Maryland, where she lived, worshiped, and ministered within a community of French-speaking Catholics from Haiti. Having been well-educated prior to arriving in the United States, Mother Lange put her gifts and skills and passion for God to work by tending to the education of both the children and adults of the community. At the time, there was no free public education for African American children in Maryland.
She responded to that need by opening a school in her home in the Fells Point area of the city for the children. She and her friend, Marie Magdaleine Balas (later Sister Frances, OSP) operated the school for over ten years.
Providence intervened through the person of Reverend James Hector Joubert, SS, who was encouraged by James Whitfield, Archbishop of Baltimore, and presented Elizabeth Lange with the idea to found a religious congregation for the education of African American girls. Father Joubert would provide direction, solicit financial assistance, and encourage other “women of colour” to become members of this, the first congregation of African American women religious in the history of the Catholic Church. Elizabeth joyfully accepted Father Joubert’s idea. She no longer needed to keep locked up the deepest desire of her heart. For years she felt God’s call to consecrate herself and her works entirely to Him. How was this to be? At the time black men and women could not aspire to religious life. But now God was providing a way! On July 2, 1829 Elizabeth and three other women professed their vows and became the Oblate Sisters of Providence.
Read more about Mother Mary Elizabeth Lange on the website of the Oblate Sisters of Providence. Currently, the Sisters are promoting the cause of Mother Lange for beatification. For more info, check out the Mother Mary Lange Guild.
Blessings to our Oblate Sisters of Providence! Our prayers are with you!
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