Poor Servants of the Mother of God
The Poor Servants of the Mother of God are a religious congregation founded in 1872 by the venerable Mother Mary Magdalen of the Sacred Heart, Frances Margaret Taylor. She was closely assisted by her friend and benefactor Lady Georgiana Fullerton, and following her death, by her husband, Mr A G Fullerton (1808-1907).
History
In 1867 Lady Georgiana translated the rule of the ‘Little Servant Sisters of the Immaculate Conception’, a rural Polish congregation.[1] She obtained permission from the founder, Edmund Bojanowski, to establish the congregation in England. On 24 October 1868, Frances Taylor took charge of a putative English branch of this congregation, in rented rooms in Fleet Street, London. In February 1869, at the invitation of the order of priests, the Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate, the community moved to the Catholic mission at Tower Hill, where they worked until June 1870.
Affiliation with the Polish congregation was found to be impracticable, and the new order was placed under the direction of its own superior general (Mother M. Magdalen). On 12 February 1872, the new congregation came formally into being when Sister Mary Magdalen took her religious vows for life. From the first it was approved and encouraged by Cardinal Henry Edward Manning, its spiritual training being committed to the Fathers of the Society of Jesus, near whose church, The Immaculate Conception, Farm St., London, the congregation worked in its early years with the poor of central London and Soho.
The early members devoted themselves to visiting the poor, teaching in parochial schools, nursing, and conducting institutions of refuge and rescue for women. The early foundations of the congregation included refuges, night shelters, schools, a workhouse, a home for the elderly, and a general free hospital, the Providence Hospital in St Helens, Lancashire.
The main other foundations made during Mother Magdalen’s lifetime were: Limerick, Ireland. (1874); Margate, Kent (1874); Carrigtwohill, Cork, Ireland (1875); Roehampton, London (1871); Brentford, Middlesex (1880); St. Helens, Lancashire (1882); Monkstown, Cork (1881); North Hyde, Middlesex (1883); Rome (1886); Streatham, London (1888); Dublin (1888); Paris (1890); Liverpool (1891); Woodford Green, Essex (1894); Rhyl, Wales (1899); Selkirk, Scotland (1899); and her last foundation at Loughlinstown, Ireland (1899).
Its Constitutions are based on the Rule of St. Ignatius, and were written by Father Augustus Dignam SJ, in conjunction with Mother Magdalen. On July 18, 1879 the Brief of Praise or Decretum Laudis was granted, signed by Pope Leo XIII. On 1 May 1892 the Brief of Approbation of the Institute and Constitutions was granted. The definitive approval of the Constitutions was granted by the Holy See on 19 July 1900, a month after Mother Magdalen’s death.
For many years the mother-house was in Rome, to which were attached two schools and the public church of St. George and the English Martyrs. In this church on Good Friday, 1887, the Three Hours was preached for the first time in English by Father Lucas, S.J.
The congregation was focused upon work in England and Ireland, but is has also had houses in Italy and France; more recently it has extended its charitable work to the United States, Venezuela, and Kenya. Houses were acquired in Roehampton in 1876 and 1927, and the Generalate is now based at Maryfield Convent, Roehampton, London.
The UK social care services of the congregation are under the operating name the Frances Taylor Foundation, which runs homes for the elderly and provides services for people with learning difficulties.
Originally, a black habit was worn, with a blue scapular and a black veil.
Bibliography
- Mother Mary Magdalen of the Sacred Heart, Foundress of the Poor Servants of the Mother of God by F. C. Devas (London, 1927)
- A Brief Life of Mother Magdalen Taylor by Sr Rose Joseph Kennedy SMG (St Mary’s Convent, Brentford, 2008)
- Born to Love – Fanny Margaret Taylor by Mother Mary Geraldine O’Sullivan SMG (London, 1970).
This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Herbermann, Charles, ed. (1913). Catholic Encyclopedia. Robert Appleton Company.