8 November 2017

Pupils and staff at Holy Child Model School Otukpo, Benue State, Nigeria last month celebrated the Society’s Foundational Feast Day. The celebration was on the 12th of October, Mass was celebrated followed by activities such as debate, poem, special number, drama, current affairs, dance and quiz on history of Cornelia and it was a wonderful day.

On October 13, 1846, the Society officially began, as Cornelia traveled to Derby, England with three other women, who became Sisters of the Holy Child. It was October 13, the feast of St. Edward, exactly six years to the day that 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.