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Faith in Action: Six Decades of Ministry and Mission

by Joanne Safian, RSHMCategory: Updates

A native of the Washington Heights area of northern Manhattan in New York City, Sister Mary Lang’s journey has taken her to numerous locations to minister to marginalized groups in our society.

Black and white photo of postulant, RSHM sister in habit and novice with white veil

Mary attended the Academy of the Sacred Heart of Mary, Park Terrace, entered the community in 1963, and was professed in 1965, so she is celebrating her 60th jubilee this year. After teaching for a few years at Marymount School of New York, Mary embarked on a journey that would characterize her religious life. A friend from grammar school who had volunteered in the mission Diocese of Pueblo, Colorado, encouraged Mary, along with two other RSHM Sisters, to participate in a summer program there. This led to their receiving permission from the provincial, Sister Jogues Egan, RSHM, to establish a team ministry serving the Hispanic community at Holy Rosary Catholic Church in Pueblo.

In Pueblo, Mary also worked at a state home and training school for developmentally disabled adults. This experience introduced her to special education and, in 1973-74, she received a grant enabling her to earn her master’s degree in special education at Teachers College, Columbia University. She then worked with adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities at AHRC in the Bronx, NY.

During her “vacations,” Mary spent one summer in Bogota, Colombia, studying and living with a family and working on her Spanish. In 1978, she spent time in Honduras working with orphans.

two womenin white nurses' uniforms. Woman on left, short wavy hair, woman on right short gray hair and wearing glasses

Then came a call from Sister Kathleen Fagan’s, RSHM, brother, Monsignor Emmett Fagan, who invited Mary to help for a month as a residential supervisor at Regina Residence in Long Island in a program for young pregnant women. The month became seven years that Mary still treasures. Coaching the women through labor and delivery led her in 1986 to nursing school at Marymount University in Arlington, VA. In 1988, Mary began nursing at Franklin General Hospital (now Long Island Jewish Valley Stream), not in obstetrics but in the psychiatric unit where she found incredible meaning in being a listener.

By 1993, another invitation arrived, this time from Sister Mary Heyser, RSHM, who was directing the Campaign for Human Development in the Diocese of Venice, Florida. Both Marys, and Maureen Kelleher, RSHM, an immigration attorney, lived in Immokalee, FL where sisters from various congregations were ministering, with Mary Lang providing health care to immigrants through a community outreach program.

group of Mexican children gathered around a priest sprinkly holy water on them on Palm Sunda

Two years later, another phone call came as Sister Martina Crowley, RSHM, the provincial, invited Mary to go to Mexico to join sisters from the Eastern and Western American Provinces and the Province of Brazil to establish an interprovincial community and ministry in Amacuzac. Mary remained until 1999; the RSHM stayed in Amacuzac until June 2014.

Returning to New York after a sabbatical, Mary’s ministry shifted again. In 2002, with Sister Frances Lane, RSHM, she co-founded our RSHM ministry at Centro Corazón de María, established at St. Rosalie’s Parish in Hampton Bays, Long Island, a ministry that continues today. Mary remained for 16 years, engaged in programs “to help newly arrived individuals and families become independent successful contributors to the community.”

Three women standing next to each other wearing corsages Left to right, short gray hair, red jacket, black scoop neck, short brown hair, turquoise scoop neck and navy jacket, short white hair, white blouse and red jacket

When Mary retired from Centro Corazón de María in 2018, she returned to Immokalee to work with immigrants. Then, in 2019, she traveled with Sister Mary Heyser and Extended Family member Clare Horn to the border to Annunciation House in El Paso, TX, and again in 2021, towards the end of the COVID pandemic, to Laredo with Clare to volunteer with other religious in processing and assisting arriving immigrants from Mexico and Central America.

Then, in what had been a pattern in her life, she received another phone call from leadership, this time from Sister Catherine Patten, RSHM, who asked her to join the Marymount Convent community and staff. Mary continues at the convent while also volunteering at the RSHM LIFE Center Legal Services office and the Grace Episcopal Church food pantry in Ossining.

Mary’s RSHM life has been one of always saying “yes” to unexpected invitations to, in the words of our mission statement, enable “the powerless, the deprived, the marginalized, the voiceless to work effectively for their own development and liberation.” On the occasion of her 60th Jubilee, we celebrate her with our admiration, gratitude and prayers.

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