WARD, MARY. - Foundress of the Institute of the Blessed Virgin Mary (v.), b. at Mulwith (England) on 23 Jan. 1585, d. at Hawart on 30 Jan. 1645.
Raised in a deeply religious family, in 1606 she went to St-Omer in Belgium and entered the convent of the Poor Clares, from which she left three years later to return to England and carry out her apostolate for young women; but being unable to realize her desire, she returned to St-Omer with five young ladies and there opened a school for the education of the daughters of the English nobility. In 1611 she adopted the Constitutions of the Society of Jesus, with the necessary variations, whence the appellation of "Jesuitesses" given to her followers. In 1614 she was finally able to open a house in London. The new Institute, called that of the English Ladies, departed from the rules then in use by its freedom from the cloister, in accordance with the proper task of this new institution, and by the government of the company concentrated in the mother general, who was to depend only on the Holy See. In 1616 she sent a memorial to Rome for pontifical approval, and the following year Paul V blessed the new Institute. Other houses were soon opened, and while in Rome the approval of M. W.'s work was being discussed, a memorial from the English clergy against her arrived there, which served to have the approval denied and to have W. condemned as heretical and disobedient. Confined in the monastery of the Poor Clares of Anger, she was held there for almost a year. Freed from it, she spent the rest of her life amid hardships and bitterness, borne with serene resignation and with full confidence in the affirmation of her work, which was approved in 1703.
The ordinary process instituted on her virtues is under study at the Sacred Congregation of Rites.
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