Called to Serve: A History of Nuns in America

1. Organizing to Serve

15 1 Organizing to Serve T H E L I V E S O F Jerusha Booth Barber and her husband, Episcopal priest Virgil Barber, changed dramatically when they decided that the Catholic Church was indeed the true path to salvation. In February 1817, Jerusha and Virgil, parents of five children, received their First Communion from Father Benedict Fenwick, who would be named Bishop of Boston in 1825.1 Virgil, of course, now had to find another career; as a Catholic he could no longer serve a Protestant parish. With Fenwick’s encouragement, Barber announced that he intended to begin a course of study that would lead to his ordination as a Catholic priest. Shortly after making this decision, the Barber family moved to Washington, D.C., where Baltimore Archbishop Leonard Neale (1815–1817) “pronounced the separation of Mr. and Mrs. Barber,” essentially granting the couple an annulment. Virgil then left to study for the priesthood in Rome, and Jerusha entered the Visitation Convent in Georgetown.2 She struggled with her husband’s decision, but eventually concluded that it was God’s will. Toward the end of Jerusha’s life, when her youngest daughter reportedly asked why she had allowed Virgil to study for the priesthood, she replied, “I felt . . . that I must make the sacrifice to God; and that if I would refuse He would deprive me of my husband and children both in this world and the next.”3 Jerusha had a far more difficult time adapting to a celibate, single life than her husband, finding it hard to live separately from Virgil and at least some of her children. Shortly after beginning her religious training in Georgetown , Jerusha left the community for a few months because she thought she was pregnant, returning to the convent when it was clear she was not going to have another child. Josephine, who was only ten months old when her parents decided to enter religious life, was too young to live in a convent, and was cared for by Fenwick’s mother. The three daughters remaining with Jerusha had to be fed, educated, and clothed, placing a considerable burden on a religious community with limited financial resources. The Barbers encountered numerous difficulties as they attempted to raise five children—all of whom entered religious life—and embrace their 16 Organizing to Serve vocations. One of the more serious challenges involved determining who was responsible for financially supporting the children, especially the four girls housed at the Georgetown Visitation convent. The community’s spiritual director, Father Joseph Picot de Clorivière, believed that since Virgil Barber had entered the Jesuits, responsibility for the young women’s financial upkeep rested on that community. He apparently told Jerusha, now called Sister Mary Augustine, that the Jesuits should place her husband in a paying job and allow him to contribute to the children’s support.4 Baltimore Archbishop Ambrose Maréchal (1817–1826) seemed to share de Clorivière’s views, writing to the Archbishop of Quebec: “The Jesuit father [Fenwick] who converted Mr. Barber and his family has certainly done a good work. But the device of his confrères in relieving themselves of the onerous burden that was the consequence thereof is by no means deserving of praise. It is yet an unsolvable problem to me how they could have succeeded in putting my poor Visitandines to the expense of entertaining and feeding five persons.”5 Despite these issues, on February 23, 1820, Jerusha Barber pronounced her vows as a Visitandine; her husband took his vows as a member of the Society of Jesus on the same day. Portrait of Elizabeth Seton. She apparently gave a portrait of herself to the Filicchi family. They had it redone to portray her wearing the black cap and habit of the Sisters of Charity. Courtesy of Sisters of Charity of Cincinnati. Organizing to Serve 17 According to her youngest daughter, Sister Josephine Barber, who later enteredtheVisitationcommunity ,takingvowsasawomanreligiousdidnotprevent Jerusha Barber from loving and worrying about her children. Sister Josephine later reflected on what she had known of her mother’s life as a woman religious when she was a child: “I know nothing more of this part of Sister M. Augustine’s life,” she wrote, “except that she continued to suffer inexpressibly on account of her children; feeling them to be a burden on the community in its state of poverty, and knowing the opposition...