Feasts of St Edward and St Teresa, October 2023

October 13 and 15 are very important dates to the Society of the Holy Child Jesus.

Our founder Cornelia Connelly and three other women, who became Sisters of the Holy Child, had left for Derby, England on October 13, the feast of St. Edward, exactly six years to the day that her husband Pierce had announced his decision to become a Catholic priest.

Even with the conditions that greeted her at the Derby convent, she was ready to have an opening Mass only two days later. In a small room, simply furnished, she and the three postulants assisted at their first Mass as a religious society. October 15, the feast of St. Teresa of Avila, would come to be observed as the formal founding of the Society of the Holy Child Jesus.

Coming to the Society’s founding feast days in the midst of many world-wide threats and tragedies, we mark the two days as ‘celebration’ in the sense of trusting that the forces of life, goodness and resurrection are greater than the death-dealing blows we witness. Recalling Cornelia’s story leads us to such hope.

Wishing each of you the blessings of the feasts, especially the determination to do all we can to bring about peace wherever we find ourselves.

Grand Coteau, USA  and Derby, England