Mother Mary John Kieran in Her Own Words – Part 1
Mother Mary John Kieran in Her Own Words : “My God, If You Will It, I Am Satisfied”
-David McAllister, Archivist
Mother Mary John Kieran, second Superior General of the Sisters of Saint Joseph in Philadelphia, left three diaries of her time in leadership; this is an introduction to those entries.
“I have no time to be sick.”
Reverend Mother Mary John Kieran wrote those words on December 10, 1886, almost in passing, noting with relief that she had managed to rise for Mass despite being ill the day before. She had too much to do to linger on it. There were sisters to place, pastors to negotiate with, buildings to fund, novices to teach, and the dying to sit beside. She got up and got on with it.
Mother Mary John served as the second Superior of the Sisters of Saint Joseph of Philadelphia from 1875 to 1888, overseeing a congregation that grew from 23 missions to 30, from 241 sisters to 371. She left behind three volumes of diaries — not polished reflections, but working documents, written in the middle of days that rarely slowed down. In them, she recorded what she was managing, what she was worrying about, and what she was praying for. She was candid, sometimes impatient, occasionally very funny, and unshakably faithful.
This is an introduction to her — through her own words, in her own voice.
“Now is my anxious time arranging the missions”
“From this time until the missions are arranged, I can do nothing but pray for God to direct me…May Our Mother of Good Counsel direct me what to do about changing Sisters.” Every year, as the school year approached, Mother Mary John brought the same anxiety to God — because even simple changes had cascading effects she could not always control.
Take the four days in November 1887 when Father Manning, pastor of St. Mary in Lonaconing, Maryland, asked that Sr. Leocadia be removed from his mission. Mother agreed and arranged to send a postulant in her place — Archbishop Patrick Ryan had made clear that no novices were to leave the novitiate, leaving her with few options. That left the problem of where to place Sr. Leocadia. “I am almost crazy,” she wrote the next day. “Sr. Arsenia said she will not take Sr. Leocadia. May our Dear Lord smooth the way for me.” The following day: “Sr. Arsenia [is] nervous that I do not know what I am doing.” And then, finally: “Sr. Delphine took Sr. Leocadia to St. Joseph. God grant she may get along there.”
The work tried her. “Mother Salome came back from McSherrystown. God give me patience.” “Sr. Angelica came out for a sister. I scolded her. She cried, but she had no feeling for me.” But it also brought moments of real satisfaction. “Sister Victorine came. A good soldier.” And Sr. Flavia Lynn, writing to thank Mother Mary John for resolving a staffing crisis at St. Patrick in Pottsville, Pennsylvania, put it plainly: “My dearest mother: besides relieving me of a mountain of anxiety, you did a vast deal of good. I don’t mean to flatter” — but your solution, she wrote, was worthy of “if not ‘Solomon,’ most certainly the ‘Observing Judge.'”
“Father is a good man but a very queer one.”
“A fearful letter from Fr. Shanahan about inefficiency of Sisters in the school. I was so stunned that I could scarcely [think]. My first feeling was to write and tell him that the Sisters would not go back. However, I shall not get too hasty. Shall take advice, but O my God, who have I to go to but you! I am afraid of my brain. It feels on fire .” Fr. John W. Shanahan was pastor of Our Mother of Sorrows Church in Philadelphia, later Bishop of Harrisburg. The advice came from Fr. Peter Crane, OSA, confessor of the sisters. “He said [Fr. Shanahan] was a crank and would take the Sisters away.” And it came from several senior sisters: “Sr. Xavier and St. Gervase came. They and I do not agree; however, I shall submit my judgment to them and shall try Fr. Shanahan’s school another year, although by giving it up I would be relieved very much, but perhaps, ‘tis God’s will.’” After calming down and listening to counsel, Mother Mary John resorted to appeasement. “I wrote to Fr. Shanahan that we would change the Superior. He answered that it was the teachers he wanted [changed] and if I persisted in changing the Superior, to take the Sisters away. I sent for Sr. Angelica [ Superior at Our Mother of Sorrows]. She said it was only three he wanted away. [I replaced them.] So that place is now settled, I hope. … Fr. is a good man but a very queer one.”
Not every confrontation required submission. When Fr. Daniel I. McDermott sent “a Tartar of a letter”—ferocious, demanding—about changing Sr. Scholastica, Mother Mary John didn’t write back, take counsel, or pray her way toward acceptance. She went to see him. “It is raining,” she noted, as if that were relevant, and then: “We saw him and got his view of changing Sr. Scholastica. He was rambling from one thing to another but was very kind and said let the school go on as usual, and we parted friends.” Sr. Scholastica stayed.
“Sometimes I think it is my sins or some neglect of mine that is displeasing Our Dear Lord.”
Mother Mary John relished the religious holidays, feast days and rituals that expressed her Catholic faith, yet it was in her everyday, daily, prayerful conversations with God that her spirituality showed through.
“Christmas day. We had midnight mass and went to Holy Communion. Also, several children were here for the holidays. Fr. Curran offered up the mass. Then we all went to bed. Fr. McShane said mass at 6 o’clock and another immediately afterwards. Fr. Curran said mass again at 9 o’clock and then went up to the Hill [to Our Mother of Consolation Church] to sing High Mass there. Benediction in the evening today. Just seemed like heaven.”
“Sr. St. Gervase brought out Sr. Etheldreda who is gone into consumption. May our dear Lord give me resignation. I feel dreadful, but I must have faith in prayer.”
“Told Sr. Magdalen to eat as much garlic as she wishes and said to Sr. Aloysia it was no worse than the Bismuth from her breath when she took it and such abuse as she gave me. May Our Dear Lord give me patience. You have borne far more for me, and I have a right to bear in silence for my sins. Mercy.”
“Oh, Holy Father, St. Joseph, send us the money. My trust is in you.”
“We have lost one of our most useful Sisters. . . . Never spoke an uncharitable word of anyone; did all her work for God.”
140 Sisters of Saint Joseph died while Mother Mary John was Superior. Even while sick, Mother attended the funerals of her “children.” “Sent Sr. Clement and Delphine to bring the body [of Sr. Stanislaus Casey] on. [I] was very sick, but no peace for me. I arose at 9:30. Funeral came at 4 o’clock. Fr. Callon and two Sisters from Orange and our own two. Mr. and Mrs. Casey, three sons-in-law. All remained all night.”
Some deaths came quickly; others she sat with for days. “Went over to Sr. M. Joseph to let Sr. Valeria go to Communion. Her sister, Mrs. Cogan, came [and] remained with her during mass. I went over as soon as mass was over to send her to breakfast and up to the Hill [to Our Mother of Consolation Church] for mass. Sr. M. Joseph begged of me not to leave, that I should pray with the Sisters when they are dying. I said I would not leave her as long as I could. She said the act of contrition several times and O God be merciful to me a sinner. Never heard it said with more fervor. Had sent for Dr. Bolling to come and see if he could give anything to relieve her. When we came from office, she was semiconscious and remained as if sleeping quietly all day…Sr. M. Joseph still unconscious and alive. I went in after supper and prayed for the dying until 8:30. Then I went over to the community room and had to go back and get at the praying. Sister died at 9pm o’clock.”
“Free as a bird”
It was a job she did not want. “I felt I would faint,” Mother Mary John wrote about her election to Superior in October 1875, “when I heard my name called out so often and found that I was the unworthy one our dear Lord had chosen to govern so large a community.” Even three years later, she still felt unworthy of holding the office: “Wrote to the Archbishop requesting to be relieved from office and to appoint a time to accept my resignation.” Immediately, he declined. When the archbishop called for an election several years after that, her joy was palpable: “[he] received my resignation as Superior … and absolved me for all the faults committed during my term of office. I gave the keys to Sr. Clement. Thank God I am free. The Srs. are crying. I am sorry for them.” The next day she wrote, “free as a bird, but working pretty hard.” Three days later, she was re-elected: “All took their votes. As the basket for discarded votes was not there, some of them got into the Ballot Box. I was re-elected–only 16 against me in 130 votes. God’s Holy will be done. May he give me grace to do His Holy Will in all things.”