The Institute of the Blessed Virgin Mary is a well-established organisation, with religious houses in countries all around the world. However, in the 17th century, when the Institute was first started, women weren’t encouraged to have any ideas of leadership.
Mary Ward was a remarkable woman who went against convention to found an institute which has lasted almost 400 years. In doing so, she sacrificed her health and was even briefly imprisoned whilst carrying out her charitable works. Her story is a remarkable one and still has the power to inspire today.
The Life of Mary Ward
Mary Ward was controversial because she believed in a type of religious life for women that was different to anything on offer at the time. She wanted religious women to be allowed to join an order which also allowed them to work in the outside world.
She was born in England around 1585, at a time when to be a Catholic was a dangerous thing. Her own family members were staunch Roman Catholics and she was inspired by the example of recent martyrs, such as Margaret Clitheroe, who had lived in nearby York, to search for a religious order which might suit her. When she couldn’t find anything that would allow her to put her faith into practice in the outside world, she came to the conclusion that she would have to create her own religious order.
Creation of the Institute of the Blessed Virgin Mary
In 1609, at the age of 24, Mary gathered a group of like-minded women and began her own religious community in Flanders, which supported itself by teaching and taking boarding pupils. She created a set of rules for the order and stated that her women would live the life of apostles, being active in the community and serving wherever the need was greatest.
This in itself would probably not have put Mary at odds with the Church authorities. It was her decision that women would run the Order that worried many within the Church. Such a decision was very controversial and made people uneasy.
