As we celebrate SMA’s extraordinary 160 years, I am awed by our founders’ faith, courage, and commitment. Sister Joanna Walsh’s remembrance of the Assumption of Mary into Heaven, a very meaningful feast day for the Sisters of Loretto, is both a poignant reminder of the hardships as well as the sisters’ firm resolve to live Loretto in the wilds of Denver City.  

The holy day of the Assumption on August 15, 1864, was a special time of celebration in all the Loretto houses but not so in Denver City. With school barely started, there had not been time for the sisters to make a retreat. Perhaps more disappointing, there was no Mass that day because Father Machebeuf and Father Raverdy were ministering to families in the outlying regions of their vast diocese.

Saddened by their situation, Sister Joanna wrote, “Our little altar is poorly furnished with the absolutely necessary, and we have nothing to add to it. This destitution, contrasted with the profusion of ornaments at Loretto (Motherhouse) and Santa Fe, made us see more clearly how poor we were.”

Her narrative recounted how she, Sister Ignacia Mora, and Sister Beatriz Maes Torres had a ‘consultation’ from which two resolutions emerged: to “turn the drift of their thoughts to intensifying our fervor in the interior preparations we are making for the renewal of our vows” and “that after dismissing the day scholars, we take the boarders for a walk, in search of some wildflowers from the prairies around us.”

The following morning on August 15, the boarders slept late and the sisters rose at their usual early hour. They gathered for prayer and renewed their vows at their simple altar, now decorated with humble wildflowers. “During that day, we thought of the celebrations at the different houses and the dear ones pronouncing the same solemn words as ourselves; yet, we were happy in our prairie wilds hundreds of miles away, happy because Holy Obedience placed us there.”

When next you see wildflowers, pick one as a reminder that we, like our founders, work together, rely on one another, and find moments of blessing in times of challenge.