Mary Ward

English religious leader and educator

• Born: January 23, 1585
• Birthplace: Mulwith, Yorkshire, England
• Died: January 30, 1645
• Place of death: Heworth, near York, Yorkshire, England

The founder of the Institute of Blessed Virgin Mary, Ward overcame hostility and resistance to establish schools and houses for Catholic women across Europe.

Early Life

In 1585, Mary Ward was born to Marmaduke Ward and Ursula Ward, wealthy landowners from Yorkshire. The eldest of six children, Ward was influenced by the stringent anti-Catholic restrictions in Protestant England. Known as recusants, Ward’s family harbored fugitive priests, fed Catholics in hiding, and served time in jail. Ward spent much of her childhood apart from her parents, including five years with her grandmother and several with other relatives. At the age of fifteen, she decided to pursue a religious life, yet her father required Mary to wait until she turned twenty-one. She finally gained her spiritual director’s permission when he overturned a chalice during mass, interpreting this event as an act of divine providence. Ward thwarted four arranged marriages.

Life’s Work

In 1606, Ward crossed the English Channel to pursue her religious vocation in Flanders. Arriving at Saint-Omer and learning that the Poor Clares (an order of nuns descended from the Second Order of Saint Francis of Assisi, founded by Saint Clare of Assisi in 1212) were not accepting “foreign” women, Ward was advised by a local Jesuit to enter the Poor Clares as a lay-sister. Unhappy with her primary responsibility of begging for food and living outside the convent, Ward resumed secular dress after five months and set out to establish an English foundation of Poor Clare sisters in nearby Gravelines.

Ward remained at Gravelines until May, 1609, when she returned to England, still uncertain about how to fulfill God’s mission and having renounced a nun’s habit twice. Ward resided in London, where she helped persecuted Catholics and continued her apostolic mission while remaining true to her vow of celibacy. By the fall of 1609, she had returned to Saint-Omer, invigorated by her desire to establish a boarding school for English girls and a day school for local children. As this School of the Blessed Mary developed, it gradually took on the nature of a religious order, and today scholars credit Mary Ward with the establishment of the Institute of the Blessed Virgin Mary (IBVM).

Between 1609 and 1615, Ward began to define her apostolic mission. The women active in Ward’s circle lived and worked among the people of the community while wearing modest black clothing. Known sometimes as English Ladies or English Virgins, these women were educated and had strong financial resources, even servants; women who wished to join and were uneducated could enter as lay-sisters. Jesuits served as the circle’s spiritual advisers initially, and Ward relied on their institutional structure and mission to envision her society of active women.

A 1611 vision revealed to Ward that she was to “take the same of the Society,” meaning that she should model her community after the Jesuits, although she wished to remain independent. Houses were established in Bavaria, the Rhineland, Austria, Italy, and Flanders with the support of local bishops and even Duke Maximilian I Wittelsbach of Bavaria. When told that women’s religious vocation frequently lapsed because women were weaker than men, Ward responded by arguing that there was no difference between men and women. Women lost their fervor, she countered, because they were as capable of imperfection as men were. After walking from Brussels to Rome in 1621, Ward released the new guidelines for her society, reaffirming her commitment to contemplative and spiritual activity without the need for strict enclosure or habits, her desire to instruct young girls in Christian doctrine, and her subjection to the pope.

Ward and her mission were clearly subjected to scrutiny. In its reform of the Church, the Council of Trent had proclaimed that strict enclosure, or seclusion from the material world, was necessary for all nuns. Many members of the Catholic Church came to question a religious woman’s desire to remain uncloistered, and visits to local homes were sometimes taken to indicate scandalous behavior. The first attack in print against Ward came in 1614. Later, she was investigated in London for causing “more hurt than six to seven Jesuits.” A 1621 complaint lodged by English clergymen reveals concern over the order’s close association with the Jesuits, its lack of strict enclosure, and its “speaking with authority about spiritual things.”

The Jesuits themselves were ordered no longer to support Ward’s group, which had at times been called the “Jesuitesses,” “wandering gossips,” and the “galloping nuns.” By 1624, enclosure was adopted by all the houses; by 1625, the papacy had ordered all Italian houses to be closed, except in Rome. In 1628, papal nuncios called for additional suppression of houses, although these calls seem to have been widely ignored. Meanwhile, Ward continued her work, writing letters and even appointing someone to visit the houses in Trier, Cologne, and Liège. One such letter asked the Liège sisters to “ignore unauthorized attempts to close the house.” This letter received scrutiny by the papal nuncio, and he advised Ward’s imprisonment immediately.

In 1631, Ward was charged with heresy, and a papal bull announced the suppression of the institute. The document expressed hostility toward women who “wandered about at will,” and who lived together without approval. The burden was “too heavy a task for weak women” and thus the “poisonous growths” (the houses) were declared null and void. Imprisoned for nine weeks in Münich, Ward decried her situation in a letter to the pope, revealing anger at being labeled a heretic and begging for help. Other letters, written in lemon juice and requiring heat to be read, indicate her precarious situation.

Brought to Rome after her arrest and then exonerated of heresy, Ward lived under papal watch in Rome with female companions from 1632 to 1637. She apparently maintained a close relationship with the pope, visiting him several times. Ward traveled to Viterbo when she fell ill and spent the winter of 1637-1638 in Paris. She then went to Liège and Saint-Omer, finally reaching London in 1639, where she received the patronage of Queen Henrietta Maria. Caught in the English Civil War and Oliver Cromwell’s governmental strife, Ward moved to Hewarth in Yorkshire in April, 1642, with her female companions and loaded ox wagons, then took refuge in York in September. She died January 30, 1645, and was buried in the village church of Osbaldwick.

Significance

Ward left behind two brief autobiographies, narrating a series of events that shaped her identity. As early as 1621, Ward’s portrait was painted, revealing her black pilgrim’s clothing. Her letters and prayers, often written in prose verse, provide useful accounts of her life. Sometimes relying on code words, her letters demonstrate that she was aware of the controversial nature of her work. Ward’s followers continued her religious vocation in Paris after her death, and by 1703, the IBVM had been granted canonical status as a religious order once again. Within fifty years of her death, an anonymous artist depicted her life in The Painted Life, a series of fifty large oil paintings located in the IBVM house in Augsburg, Germany.

In 1909, Ward was officially declared the founder of the Institute of the Blessed Virgin Mary, a religious order still in existence today (Mother Theresa served in the Loreto branch of the order for twenty years). Ward’s determination provided a new path for religious women, one that emphasized education and active missionary work. Her actions both demonstrated and attempt to ameliorate the limitations of the Church in addressing women’s spiritual needs. Ward can be seen as a strong female leader in an increasingly conservative and patriarchal era.

Bibliography

Cameron, Jennifer. A Dangerous Innovator: Mary Ward, 1585-1645. Strathfield, N.S.W.: St. Paul’s, 2000. One of the more useful biographies on Ward with some translated primary sources including papal bulls and Ward’s prison declaration. Timeline, map, and bibliography.

Cover, Jeanne. Love—the Driving Force: Mary Ward’s Spirituality, Its Significance for Moral Theology. Milwaukee, Wis.: Marquette University Press, 1997. Examination of Ward’s spirituality with bibliography and citations.

Littlehales, Margaret Mary. Mary Ward: Pilgrim and Mystic. Tunbridge Wells, Kent, England: Burns & Oates, 2001. Although lacking footnotes, a thorough biography and a few translated primary sources. Photograph of tombstone, and visuals from The Painted Life.

Orchard, M. Emmanuel, ed. Till God Will: Mary Ward Through Her Writings. London: Darton, Longman, and Todd, 1985. An edited collection of primary sources. Provides a useful introduction, and then divides Ward’s writings thematically into reflections on her childhood, her conflicts, and the growth of the institute. Map.

Peters, Henriette. Mary Ward: A World in Contemplation. Translated by Helen Butterworth. Leominster, Herefordshire, England: Gracewing Books, 1994. Detailed and authoritative biography that relies on archival manuscripts and unpublished sources. Illustrations and extensive bibliography.

Wright, Mary. Mary Ward’s Institute: The Struggle for Identity. Sydney: Crossing Press, 1997. A useful text for understanding Mary Ward’s contribution to the institute. Provides detailed information on the contemporary institute. Index and bibliography.