The following was prepared by our parishioner, Nadine Boulware, who is providing us occasional articles on US Catholic Black history.

Although the family origins of Elizabeth Clarissa Lange are unclear, it is likely that she was born about 1789 in Cuba to parents who had fled from Haiti during the Haitian revolution. Her family in Cuba was financially secure and Lange received an excellent education, something rare for black people in a time when most were enslaved.

In the early 1800s, Lange and her family immigrated to the United States. Documentary evidence is missing regarding her family’s first years in the United States, but according to some witnesses, they first settled in the deep slave holding South, perhaps Charleston, SC and Norfolk, VA, before settling in Baltimore, MD around 1813. Slavery was still the norm, but there was a significant free Black population in Baltimore.

Coming from a Haitian family and being born in Cuba, both predominantly Catholic places, Lange was a Catholic. When she arrived in Baltimore, there was a desperate need for schools to educate African American children. There were several Protestant groups operating schools and she saw the need for more schools and particularly for a Catholic school. She founded a small school and began to educate African American children.

While in Baltimore. Lange soon met Sulpician Father James Nicholas Jobert, a native of France and a former soldier. In Father Jobert, she found an advocate who believed in her mission of educating African American children. Father Jobert found an ally and helper. Father was in charge of teaching catechism to African-American children who attended the Love Chapel at Saint Mary’s Seminary.

Father Jobert found it difficult to teach catechism to poorly educated, often illiterate, Black children. Fr. Jobert began to seek women of color to serve as teachers. It was hard to find qualified Black teachers in Maryland, a slave state. When Father Jobert discovered two Black Catholic women, Lange and Maria Balas, already operating a school, he saw hope of advancing his mission.

After getting to know these good women, Father Jobert recognized the usefulness and witness value of African American Religious Sisters and he proposed to Lange and Balas that they consider creating a religious congregation for Black women. These women had already dreamed of such a vocation, but had considered it impossible in slave holding and racially segregated Maryland. Father Jobert’s suggestion was readily accepted by these holy women. The Archbishop of Baltimore, James Whitfield , approved the new community and by 1829 there were four Black Catholic Sisters in Baltimore.

The new Congregation was named the Oblate Sisters of Providence and was the first religious congregation of women of African descent in the United States. The Oblate Sisters of Providence were established primarily for the education of girls.

Lange took the name, “Sister Mary” and became the first superior general of the new community. Their habit was a black dress with a cape and a white cap.

The Oblates fought poverty, racism and untold hardships to evangelize the Black community through Catholic education. By 1832 the Oblates had grown to eleven members, but when a cholera broke out and ravaged the city, all of the Sisters volunteered to help people suffering from this dreaded and contagious disease. Mother Lange and three Sisters were chosen to serve the sick and dying.

After completing her service as superior, Mother Lange took a job as a domestic worker at the local seminary to earn money to support the growing and poor congregation. In 1850 Mother Lange was appointed mistress of novices, a position she held for the next ten years.

On February 3, 1882, she died at the age of 92 or 93. After her death, many people began to venerate her as a saint. In 1991, Cardinal William Henry Keeler, Archbishop of Baltimore, opened a formal investigation of Lange’s life with the approval of the Holy See to promote her cause for canonization as a saint.

In 2004, documents describing Mother Lange’s life were sent to the Vatican’s Congregation for Cause of Saints. The Vatican approved the “positio” (documentation of her life), in 2023 , a key step in the process. Pope Francis declared her ”Venerable’ on June 22, 2023.

Mother Mary Lange was open to God’s providence and obedient to the Lord’s call even though circumstances brought humiliation and pain. Those devoted to Venerable Mother Mary Lange hope that God will perform a miracle through her intercession and that she will soon be declared Blessed.