Our Catlzolic Heritage in Texas
bungalow at 4031 Chester Street and there opened a convent and novitiate with Bishop Schuler's consent. The principal aim of this Order is to bring back to the path of virtue erring women and girls by offering them a friendly home and giving them material and spiritual assistance for as long as may benefit them in their struggle to live down their sins. They had no intention of remaining in El Paso, but on April 18, 1928, eighteen more Sisters arrived from Mexico with forty Magdalenes. Father Miguel Pro, S.J., the saintly martyr of the anti-Catholic fury of President Calles, had been instru- mental in advising them to seek refuge in El Paso. Magdalenes are repentant women who chose to devote their lives to prayer, labor and penance. They form a separate Community under the guidance of the Sisters by doing all kinds of hand work and manual labor such as laundering. The house on Chester Street could not accommodate the enlarged Congregation. Mother Mary of St. Francis de Sales bought a larger piece of property in Mesilla Park, New Mexico, not far from El Paso, part of the Congregation remaining in the first convent. In view of the circumstances, they established a home for delinquent girls in El Paso. By 1936 there were in El Paso sixteen Sisters, and forty-two girls. In Mesilla Park there were 21 Sisters, 50 Magdalenes, 20 orphans in an orphanage established by them, and 30 delinquent girls. 78 Another group of Sisters on their way back to Mexico stopped in El Paso on October 29, 1929, with no intentions of staying. They were a group of Sisters of the Congregation of Our Lady of Charity, the ancient order founded by St. John Edudes in 1641 in Caen, France. Their chief work is to care for children who need upbringing and of girls who are in danger of sin. In this they have a similar mission to that of the Sisters of the Good Shepherd. They had worked successfully for sixteen years in Saltillo, Coahuila, Mexico and had hoped to return to their labors, but circumstances frustrated their plans. After a nine months' wait, they asked and were granted permission by Bishop Schuler to establish them- selves in El Paso. They began to exercise their mission of teaching and caring for poor children in the parish of San Juan Bautista and with child-like faith trusted in the Lord to help them. They began their labors in the parish school and two years later moved to a small building they acquired and
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78 El Paso Diocese, Texas Centennial Cdebratio11, 34.
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