| Little
Company of Mary
Australian Province |
|
Mary
Potter was born on November 22, 1847, the fifth child and only daughter
of William and Mary Anne Potter of the parish of Southwark, England. Her
father left the family before Mary was one year old, immigrating to
Australia, leaving to Mary's mother the task of raising five young
children. Known affectionately as a Queen Victoria in her own home, Mrs.
Potter succeeded in her task. At early age, she sent her only daughter
Mary to a small, privately run Catholic 'dame' school, called Cupola
House. There Mary learned little, apart from the 'womanly skills' of
sewing, singing, basic geography and history, the inevitable music and
French, and how to comport herself in public. Leaving school at
seventeen, Mary returned to her brother's home in Portsmouth, where her
mother had taken up residence. There her life was surrounded by domestic
duties, entertaining her brother’s friends, and supporting her mother.
Her future appeared to lie either in marriage, or in the ongoing care of
her parent. Happy enough in her family environs, secure in the love and
adulation of adoring brothers and a rather overprotective mother, Mary
wanted nothing more than what she had. This was a situation that was
about to change. At
the age of nineteen, Mary Potter became engaged to a young man called
Godfrey King. Her future seemed to be assured - a young man devoted to
her, and the prospect of marriage and family before her - it was not to
eventuate. Mary was a bright, vivacious girl and Godfrey was
far more sober and introverted. He had, in fact, tried his vocation as a
Trappist. Failing in that venture, he became a coach for the Army. In
his religious intensity, he endeavoured to bring Mary to a more serious
view of life and religion, and accordingly gave her pious tracts to read
and study. Among other books and pamphlets, there was a book by one
Father Quadrupani, which was entitled: Instructions for Christians of
a Timid Conscience who live in the World! Godfrey's view was
that Mary was simply too flighty and needed to develop a seriousness of
purpose about her faith. Whilst she does not appear to have read the
works he thrust upon her, he did influence her considerably - a
fact he lived to regret. Under his influence, Mary began to realize that
religion did not simply consist in the regular attendance at obligatory
functions of the church. She began to take prayer more seriously
and to participate more closely in the sacramental life of the Church.
Ultimately, she broke her engagement to the young man, and came to the
conclusion that she should enter religious life.
The
next two years were years of painful illness and confusion. Whilst with
the Mercy community, Mary's inclination to the spiritual life had grown.
She still desired to enter religious life, but how was it to be
possible? There seemed to be no answer for her there. Still convinced
that God was drawing her to himself, Mary found a spiritual pathway that
seemed to offer her the discipline and the structure that she wanted.
This was the path of Mary as enunciated by Grignon de Montfort. In
1872, she read Faber's translation of the Treatise on True Devotion
to the Blessed Virgin. This small book challenged Mary to look at the
path it suggested and after much procrastination (due to a basic dislike
of the devotion as it was enunciated in De Montfort) she began to put it
into practice, making her consecration to Mary in September 1872.
The daily living of this consecration was to be the secret of Mary’s
spiritual progress and her strength. The long and the short of the
practice was a disciplined life....seeking to live for God alone,
through prayer and self denial. She began to experience moments of union
with God. Writing of her experiences, she expressed how close God
appeared to be to her: : "God seems to have such entire
possession of me. If I was to sit and meditate as some books advise, to
think for instance, there was a time, when I did not exist, it would be
but a distraction. I love to think of creation, and yet I seem to have
been with God creating, but my meaning may be misunderstood. Those whom
God enfolds in a similar manner alone could understand me". Such
experiences drew her to a deep love not only of God, but of all that was
of God. Her writings, both public and private celebrated the world of
Creation, which she saw as 'an echo' of God. The task of the world, and
all in it was "to reflect him, to mirror his beauty to reflect the
light, the radiant loveliness of the Divinity”. The world was
"one of the glories of the universe.... [and] if you could rise out
of it and [be] in some [other ] part of the universe, you would see a
radiant orb, reflecting uncreated Beauty, brilliantly radiant with rays
of Divine Light.....the Attributes of God reflected from all parts"
.
In
1874 Mary began to experience what she later termed 'a call from God',
not to re-enter religious life, but to bring to birth a new religious
community within the Church. This 'new thing' was to be a community of
women, whose lives would centre on the mystery of Calvary. From the
outset, Mary claimed that the inspiration for this new group within the
Church was "a direct impress' from God, and that its purpose was
to proclaim the meaning of Calvary to both Church and world. At first
reluctant to accept that what God appeared to be saying was indeed for
her to implement, and not left to another, Mary tried to interest her
priest in the idea. He was not impressed. The belief grew, and by 1875,
Mary had come to the realization that if God did indeed wish this new
institute to be within the Church, then she had to take responsibility
for its implementation. Opposition to her grew apace with her
conviction. Part
of the problem lay in the fact that the apparent inspiration for this
new order did not emerge from any perceived need, such as education
or social or physical care of the poor, sick or elderly. Mary’s basic
belief was that she had been instructed that an order was to exist
within the Church that would reflect and make visible, the meaning of
Calvary. In other words, to incarnate in the world, the self-emptying of
the Cross. The 'work' perceived as integral to this institute, was a
work of prayer and self-oblation, in imitation of the self-oblation of
Jesus and Mary on Calvary . Particular to the vision was the offering
each member would make of her own life, for those in danger of dying
apart from the knowledge of God’s love for them. Whilst Mary
herself was particularly drawn to prayer for and care of the dying, and
whilst she perceived that this was a work well undertaken by those who
were called to share a Calvary vocation, the element of service was not
specific to the institute. What was specific was the spirit that would
fill it. A life of self-offering for others - that was the first
requirement. In
Mary’s mind, there was no separation between the contemplative life
and the active prophetic work of the apostolate. If Jesus redeemed the
world ‘less by what he did than by what he was and what he
suffered’, the community had the task of emulating this in their daily
lives and work. A Calvary vocation implied more than the stoic bearing
of suffering. It required willed suffering, an endurance of the pain of
being stripped of all things on behalf of others, and for others.
Undoubtedly this was also influenced by her own life. Mary had never
enjoyed good health. She had been born with a weak heart; had
contracted rheumatic fever and suffered greatly from rheumatism in later
life. She had both breasts removed because of carcinoma before she was
thirty three years old, and was prey to a generalized debility of body.
The last years of her life were spent in a wheel chair, due to a
crippling arthritic condition. Yet even this did not stop her from her
work of evangelizing through word and deed, or from her ministry of
prayer to the dying
In
the last quarter of the nineteenth century, such attitudes, along with
the questions of death and dying, grief and loss were questions of
immense proportions. If industrialization had broken the communitarian
dimensions of an older society, and introduced the notion of the
individual as both disposable and replaceable, the doubts and questions
regarding religion itself were challenging the meaning of life. In the
context of urbanization and industrialization, amidst questions of the
ultimate meaning of humanity, how did the individual find value? What
was man anyway, a human being, or a highly evolved species of ape? For
Mary, answers to the anxieties of the age and the quest for
understanding the nature of humanity were to be found in the
understanding of the value of individual human life resting in a mortal,
yet immortal beauty. Answers were also to be found in the value of
Christian hope, and in the alleviation of the loneliness of the age. The
meaning of the Cross was that life was infinitely valuable, utterly
valued. Whilst her world view was limited by her own social position,
and her poverty of education, she had seen enough of the misery of the
nineteenth century to feel drawn to care for those who were its
loneliest souls. These were, surprisingly perhaps, not the poor, but
those who had none to love them. “See the homeless, the
f A
MARIAN SPIRITUALITY. The
spirit of this infant congregation was Marian. All members made their
consecration to Mary, and were to evangelize in the Spirit of Mary - To
them Mary had said: "Do Whatever he tells you". The response
of the community was to be at the beck and call of God and to respond to
it without fear. In the spirit of Mary - that spirit of 'maternal' care
given to her on Calvary, the members of the institute were to nurture
life in all its forms, and to break through the power of evil to lock
humanity into fear and self-hatred. To them belonged the same task given
to Mary on Calvary...the care of the body of Christ in all its members.
It was, in fact, an imitation of the 'mother-love of Jesus and Mary'
that was called for. Mary Potter's understanding of Calvary was that it
was a place of birth as well as death. Jesus, who was the 'good Shepherd
who laid down his life for his sheep', was the exemplar of the maternal
love of God for all. “God’s love is Mother-love”,she
argued, and in the motherhood of Mary [and of those who would take her
place in this world] was seen the “grand office of a mother… [an]
exemplification of God himself.” Perhaps
one of the most challenging features of Mary Potter’s life was its
universality. There seemed nothing she would not endeavour to do, and no
one she would not seek to assist. Her mind ranged across the
world. She did not isolate herself from any arena of life, but sought to
be and bring good news to all. Such an open response to life
automatically brought with it the tensions of misunderstanding and
conflicts. Mary’s suffering was not to be only of body. It was to be a
suffering of mind through the doubt and contradictions of others. In her
development of the Little Company of Mary, she suffered the
misunderstanding of confessors, directors and Bishops. Her God driven
desire to be for the suffering world came into conflict with the lack of
vision of many with whom she had to work. As with other women who dared
to live the vision that had been implanted in them, Mary was
‘silenced'.. Unable to speak with her sisters, she wrote, suffered and
prayed and reached a point in her own life where it was God alone who
mattered. Yet, she never lost the love she had for the Church and all
those who served that Church.
MARY
POTTER AND THE HEALING MINISTRY
She
was so convinced of this, that the actual choice of ministries
caused her little concern, although nursing seemed to her to be a
natural expression of the fundamental ministry of prayer for the dying.
Personal assistance of the sick would be a way of keeping the members of
the Institute mindful of their essential spiritual mission, and enable
them to be at the bedside of the dying, thus ensuring a unity between
prayer and work. Originally, the work of nursing was carried out
in the homes of individuals, but as the Church began to feel the need to
establish Catholic Hospitals, the calls came from all corners of the
globe for Mary Potter to commence a hospital ministry. This she did, and
the characteristic stamp of healing as the primary ministry of the
Little Company of Mary was born. Hospitals of the ‘blue nuns’ sprang
up in all corners of the globe. The fundamental concern of those who
followed Mary Potter was to minister in the ‘spirit of Mary’, and no
opportunity was to be lost in the service of those who needed healing.
Nor was the fundamental mission of the Church to be apart from the
ministry. All who came within the radius of the ministries of the
Little Company of Mary were to be 'evangelized' - made aware of their
loveliness as children of God, brothers and sisters of the Jesus. Just
as the World was created to image forth the loveliness of God, so too
human beings were created to shine out their inner glory. Within each,
believed Mary, lay the Divinity. Interestingly
enough, Mary Potter did not see that her sisters would be the only ones
to engage in nursing within the Catholic hospital situation. True to her
inspiration that religious and laity work together for the formation of
the world in Christ, and that all are born for holiness, Mary Potter
encouraged lay participation in hospital ministry. In order to achieve
this, she began Nursing training programs - the first being in 1908 in
Rome. Again, true to her conception of the collaboration between laity
and religious for the good of the whole church, Mary Potter sought to
ensure that those who entered the schools of nursing would have the
opportunity of participating in some degree in the spiritual apostolate
of the institute. She wished them to inherit the spirit of Calvary, to
sanctify themselves and to assist and pray for the dying in union with
their Mother.
A
MODEL FOR OUR TIMES Mary
Potter’s vision of a world united in Christ through Mary, led her out
of a world of stability and security into a life of suffering and
challenge. Her commitment to the people of God enabled her to see
clearly the need for collaboration and support on all levels of society.
Her followers in the religious life were to be a supporting and
sustaining presence in the world in which they lived. They were to
facilitate and make available - as Mary Potter had - the means by which
all could grow into the fullness of their being in God. They were to
share with her a commitment to the exposition of a Marian
Spirituality, which could provide a way of life for men and women
everywhere to 'know' God, in a personal, loving intimacy. Loving
God for Mary meant loving all that God was and is. God was to be found
in all places spare wondrous and strange. God lived within all.
This meant that the Little Company of Mary could not be
divorced from the world but rather, fully engaged with it. With her
awareness of the role of the laity in the church, and the need for
support and encouragement in the often lonely task of transforming the
world for Christ, she provides a model of co-operation and collaboration
with God and with each other, which challenges us today.
|
|
 |
Copyright © 2005 Little Company of Mary |
Mary
Potter's Life Story
After
consultation with her director, Mary tried her vocation with the Sisters
of Mercy at Brighton. She began her postulancy in 1868, but by 1870 it
had been decided that whilst Mary did indeed seem to have a vocation to
religious life, it was not in the Sisters of Mercy. The Annals of
the Mercy Community at Brighton state: “It was found impossible
that Sr. M. Aloysius Potter should remain, her health continued so
delicate. She was exceedingly good and holy, but quite unable for the
duties, besides which, her mind was weak and she was nervous and
imaginative, and this most probably would have increased in her. Father
Lambert, the Jesuit was quite grieved at the decision of the community,
and applied to the Assumption nuns to receive her. She went to the
convent and was introduced to the Superior, but she was afraid of
receiving her.. .” The difficulty appears to have been that Mary had
begun a journey into prayer that was not suited for the highly apostolic
nature of the Sisters of Mercy. Extant records indicate that whilst her
Novice Mistress and Spiritual Director believed that the young woman
should be given time to claim her own contemplative nature, the Superior
of the House determined otherwise. The conflict was resolved by the
action of Mary's superior, who wrote to her brother requesting that he
come and collect his sister. Mary had succumbed to the tensions of
community life and her struggle against her own natural inclinations.
Seriously ill, she was taken back home to Portsmouth, where she spent
the rest of the year confined to her bed.
This
love of created beauty and the sense of the intrinsic loveliness of all
created beings and things would develop over Mary's lifetime. It was not
a spasmodic thing, coming only at prayer or at intervals, but a constant
joy, "a pleasure in all around, a pleasure from sights and
sounds. How to express it is difficult. Many rise to the song of a bird,
and to sweet music, but my soul rejoices as I look upon a poor workman,
as I hear the singing of a machine" . Those experiences drew her to
a even greater love for God and humanity.” He [God] has filled me with
his love. He has poured forth His Holy Spirit upon me, and told me to
live by it, and now I live no longer in myself, but He my Lord and God
liveth in me. Loving him I must love those whom he has made, not with my
own poor heart but from the Heart of Jesus". That
characteristic of great love for others would remain with her all her
life. As she reflected, prayed and sought spiritual guidance, Mary lived
simply within the family home. Her hopes for returning to religious life
remained, but there were few to support the notion, and her mother,
having, as she stated "made the sacrifice once", was not about
to let her daughter go again. Mary, however, was changing and being
changed. No longer docile to the desires of her parent, nor simply
content to remain within the shelter of the family home, Mary began to
put into practice some of the skills she had aquired within the Mercy
community. She took it upon herself to visit the poor, to sit with the
suffering. Enlisting her mother's aid, she even began a small school,
both to earn an income, but also to try to be 'useful'. It was a desire
that was to fulfilled in a most unexpected manner. 
Contemplation
of the Cross, and the Mother of Jesus’ role on Calvary, confirmed Mary in
her concern for the dying of the world. Christ did not die alone. Two
others died with him. As Mary stood beneath the Cross of her son, so she
stood beneath the cross of these other deaths. For Mary Potter, this
awareness of the dying of the world was part and parcel of of her
vocation to stand with, to pray for those others who died abandoned or
isolated in their own misery and/or sin. Where possible, there should be
those able to physically support them. Care for the dying as a physical
ministry emerged as a by-product of the attitude of heart such a
vocation implied. It was also a genuine response to an age of acute
anxiety: an age in which “We see…the dark ocean on whose
rolling waves we toss for a brief hour; from the great night
without, a chill blast breaks in upon our refuge; all the loneliness of
humanity amid hostile forces is concentrated upon the individual soul,
which must struggle alone, with what of courage it can command, against
the whole weight of a universe that cares nothing for its hopes and
fears." 
riendless”,
she wrote, “My heart feels more for the friendless, than even [for]
the loved poor. The poor are not generally friendless, but ….see
the numbers of frail women who have no home, the governesses, servants,
maids, orphans or worse - numbers of God's children battle on alone, and
this is not in the Providence of God. He has designed otherwise” . It
is interesting that Mary did not view solitude, isolation or the
suffering of individuals as God’s will. It was something not to
be 'offered up', but alleviated. People were not replaceable or
disposable. The individual was unique and worthy of all love and
respect. If the men and women of her own time were suffering the
isolation and loneliness of a world rapidly losing its old securities,
then the mission of the Church, and her own mission was to bring them to
an understanding of their essential beauty and intrinsic value as part
of a human family. Her belief in her call to form a group of women
in the church who were devoted to this end met with opposition
from every quarter, but Mary persevered until, in 1877, the first
foundation of what would become the Little Company of Mary was made in
Nottingham, England. 
The
dream of Mary Potter was to bring into reality the unity of a world
united in Christ. It was to that end that she devoted her life. She did
not limit herself or her congregation to any one particular apostolic
work. She knew that the great work to be done was the work of
evangelisation. This work was carried out by spreading the good news of
Jesus using every possible means. From her reflection on the life of
Jesus and Mary, Mary Potter saw the sanctity of human life. From her own
intense experience of union with her God, she came to understand God's
longing to be so united to all his children. Her spirituality was
thoroughly grounded in the Incarnation. God had given himself to his
people - become one with them in Christ, and in Mary, the mother of
Jesus, Mary Potter saw the wonderful relationship that can exist if the
human person is prepared to let go of all things and abandon themselves
to God. In Mary – the Mother of the Lord - people could find a Mother
who would lead them to the truth of Jesus. In Mary also, each person
could find the example of what it meant to be a Christ bearer to the
world. Evangelisation was a ‘mothering forth’ of the Christ who
lived at the heart of all things, and those who followed the Path of
Mary were committed to that task. 
Evangelization
was the primary mission of the Little Company of Mary, and every
ministry which emerged in the early years of the congregation was geared
to this, but evangelization itself had to come from an intense and
personal relationship with God in Christ. The works of the congregation
were ministries, which were to be the manifestations of the interior
life of the group. For Mary Potter, exterior works were important only
in so far as they expressed the reality of the charity that lived
within, they were not a substitute for it. Nor were religious the only
ones called to holiness and union with God. Her own experiences told her
that all were called to share the life of God in Christ, all were born
equal. All were to share the mission of the Church to spread the Good
News of God's great love. This was the one thing necessary. This was the
task for all to make visible. The works would eventuate from the needs
of the communities in which the sisters served, or the demands of the
Church. It did not matter what was done - what mattered intensely was
that the human family found in the members of this little Company, a
heart and hearth at which they could be at home. 
This
same spirit of collaboration with the laity was seen in the work
undertaken with maternity care. Shortly after the foundation of the
Little Company (in July,1877), the Sisters had been asked by the local
bishop of Nottingham to care for maternity cases in the area. This they
did, but the work came to the attention of Cardinal Manning, who
considered that maternity nursing was not an apostolate suitable for
religious. This brought the work of the sisters to an end. Mary
was not daunted. She quickly found a substitute, gathering together a
small group of associate lay-nurses, “Our Lady’s Nurses”, who
would work in conjunction with the Little Company, and who would nurse
any patients for whom religious sisters were not permitted to care
Though this arrangement proved satisfactory, Mary Potter was not
satisfied. She felt that any community, whose members were consecrated
to the Virgin Mother, should share in the charity which led that Mother
to go in haste to her cousin Elizabeth and to remain with her until the
birth of John the Baptist. Accordingly, Mary Potter petitioned Rome to
allow ‘confinement nursing’ to be undertaken by the Little Company
of Mary. Limited permission for this to happen was given in 1886, and
final approbation for it given in 1905 providing they always chose
“the more mature’ sisters”!! The permission however, was only for
the members of the Little Company of Mary, and not until 1936 was
official approval for Religious to enter into maternity nursing made
available to other religious congregations. 