The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1895-01-27
THE CHURCH'S BRIDES
SOCIETY GIRLS WHO TAKE THE
VEIL AND WORK FOR CHARITY.
First the Novftfate and then the Final
vows-A solemn, Beautiful aud
Impressive Ceremony.

Each year New York averages upward
of fifty young girls who become brides
of the church, When Miss Katherine
Drexel, the society girl and heiress of
millions. took the veil and entered a
convent society referred to the event
with exclamation points; since then sew
eral almost as well-known daughters Of
wealth and high social standing have
wearied of the empty honors of the gay
world and followed in her footsteps,
while 1T is fact creating little COM
ment that number of society women,
worn with the fatigues of their round
of duties and seeking to do penance for
the follies of their butterfly lives, go
into religious retreats during the Lenten
season.
Miss Drexefs final vows We're taken
recently upon the completion of her
novitiate at convent school for In
dams in New Mexico, and New York's
latest accessions to the ranks of the
religieuses were Miss M. M. Humill, OF
No. 70 East Eighty-first street. and
Miss Lillian NJ. Joachim, of West
Eighty-third street. both daughters of
prominent Harlem Catholic families.
They We're last week received into the
church as members of the Convent of
the Sacred Heart, at Kenwood, Albany
county. With them was received Bos-
ton girl of prominent family of the
Hub. Miss Ruth Burnett, who is an
intimate friend of Mrs. Cleveland. Miss
Nellie Humill, a sister of Miss M. M.
Humill, took the veil at the Convent of
the Dominicans at Hunts Point year
ago.
Taking the veil' no longer means
what it did in the middle ages. In
New York there are few clustered nuns
who devote themselves entirely to con-
temptation and, prayers, and the gentle
faces and black robes of the sisters of
the Roman Catholic Church are seen
on the highways and in byways and
wherever are poverty, suffering and
crime; they nurse the sick; they visit
the prisons; they reclaim young girls
from lives of shame; they care for the
waits and foundlings, the orphans and
the homeless; they minister to the aged;
they comfort the last hours OF the
dying; they are missionaries among the
foreign population; they conduct homes,
hospitals schools and academies; they
have. in a word. adapted themselves to
the needs of modern times.
There are $500 good sisters at work in
various branches of beneficence in New
York city alone, and their number and
usefulness have been constantly increas-
ing with the growth of the city and its
shall not be diminished from year to
year it is necessary that at least fifty
young women should enter upon the
good work of the various orders an
nually. u
THE FLOWER OF, THE FAITH
They come from the best families in
the city, the flower of the maidenhood
of the faith. from homes of wealth and
refinement in most cases, and in the full
bloom of youth and beauty, with graces
of heart and mind, and when the world
and its enticements are most potent
these young girls put aside social
triumphs, the happy dreams of wife
hood and motherhood. to become the
brides of the church 1t is a solemn
union, not lightly undertaken. binding
until death, and the church requires of
it's young betrothed serious proof of her
fitness for the religious life.
1.-The young woman who would enter
a religious life,'' a prelate of the New
York diocese told World reporter,
must first convince her spiritual adj
wiser of her special fitness for it. She
must be at least sixteen years old. of
irreproachables family and fair educa-
ton: she must bring to the church
dowry or dot on entering most of the
orders. the amount varying according
to the requirements OF the SiSterhood
of the Sacred Heart requires the largest
dowry. while in others the sum is very
small, merely to insure the order against
loss in case the postulant or novice does
not persevere in her intention to enter
the order.
''She then becomes an inmate of the
mother house of the order she desires
to join, as postulant. Her postulancy
continues from three to six months. ac-
cording to the character of the girl and
"a
desire to persevere in holy life. She
then is accepted on probation, dons the
habit of the order and is known as a
novice.
1.-The novitiate varies in different or
ders. The Ladies of the Sacred Heart
the Little Sisters of the Poor and other
sisterhoOds where the duties are difficult
and the rules exacting, require two
but one year. The novice. if she con-
tinueS in her original intention, at the
end of her novitiate renounces the
world and takes the oath of the sister
hood"
There are twenty-five sisterhoods in
New York, embracing all kinds of char
liable work, and they control 124 insti-
tutions.
The largest organization here is that
of the Sisters Of Charity, otherwise
known as the Sisters of st. Vincent de
Paul. They have charge of parochial
schools. orphan asylums and hospitals,
and also a founding asylum The
young girl who becomes a Sister of
Charity must of necessity be one fitted
for active charitable labors. The Ladies
Of the Sacred Heart require that those
who enter their order shall have ex-
ceptional intellectual gifts and train
ing. the highest culture and degree
of wealth; no active charities are within
their province They are occupied en-
tirely in the charge of academies for
the higher education of young women,
and throughout the country their schools
of learning have become famous for
their high grade Of scholarship and
their exclusiveness.
The girl who enters the order of the
Sisters of Mercy spends her life in visit
ing the sick and the prisons. She who
enters the order of the Sisters of the
Good Shepherd must possess tact. ten
derness and incorruptible high-minded-
ness for the delicate task of retaining
fallen women and conducting reforma-
tories for girls.
WORK OF OTHER ORDERS.
The work of the Ursuline nuns is con-
fined to the teaching of academies and
parochial school. The novice with a