After being honored by the group SOAR! (Support Our Aging Religious), Sister Mary Bourdon – the co-founder of the Washington School for Girls – said she has been inspired in her nearly five decades as a Religious of Jesus and Mary by the heroic women in her order and the heroic girls attending that school.

At the Nov. 2 SOAR! Washington, D.C., Awards Dinner at the Embassy of Italy, where she received the group’s Saint Elizabeth Ann Seton Award named for the pioneer Catholic educator who was the first canonized saint born in the United States, Sister Mary reflected on her experiences in educational and charitable outreach by saying, “Each one of them brought a new grace to me. God speaks to us along the way.”

Since Sister Mary, a Rhode Island native, entered the Religious of Jesus and Mary in 1969 and professed her first vows in 1973, she served over the years as a school counselor and teacher at the former Regina High School in Hyattsville and at the Jesus and Mary Academy in El Paso, Texas, and as director of her order’s Quest volunteer program that does extensive work in Haiti. She also provided counseling for individuals and families through Catholic Charities and at Catholic schools in the Archdiocese of Washington.

And she served as the co-founding head of school of the Washington School for Girls, a tuition-free Catholic school serving girls in grades 3-8 the Anacostia section of Washington. The school began as the dream of women from the National Council of Negro Women, the Society of the Holy Child Jesus and the Religious of Jesus and Mary. The outreach began as the Washington Middle School for Girls in 1997 with an after-school tutoring and enrichment program, and the next year it began offering a full-day program. Now the year-round academic program serves 130 students at two campuses in Southeast Washington, including at Our Lady of Perpetual Help Parish.

The school on its website says its mission “is to close the educational gap and broaden the educational opportunities for girls from economically disadvantaged communities,” providing them with “an excellent academic program and supportive environment which engages families and the community in the social, emotional and spiritual growth of its students and graduates.”

Sister Mary, who retired as the head of school at the Washington School for Girls in 2017, said in an interview with the Catholic Standard,  “It came out of a sense of justice. I don’t think there’s any more important justice issue than education.”

She noted that the school’s motto is “In the Spirit of Courageous Women,” which she said she witnessed every morning in the young girls walking into the school, determined to get a good education.

“The greatest joy,” she said  “is when I see our graduates become so successful,” seeing students going on to college, graduate school and professions and in their communities, including three graduates who now work at the school, in teaching, graduate support and in the after-school program, helping girls following in their paths.

Sister Mary said the girls have “that courage to face whatever they have to,” and to go forward and strive to be the women whom God wants them to be. “These girls are amazing,” she said. “They taught me a lot.”

She said it was very meaningful for her to receive an honor named for St. Elizabeth Ann Seton, a Sister of Charity of St. Joseph who started a school in Baltimore in 1808 that laid the groundwork for the nation’s Catholic parish school system. That saint, said Sister Mary, “stood for Catholic education. That’s something I’ve been very committed to.”

Sister Mary said she was inspired by the Religious of Jesus and Mary who staffed St. Clare School in Woonsocket, Rhode Island, where she attended elementary and high school. The sisters encouraged serving others, and would be right alongside students volunteering at soup kitchens and in other outreach to the poor.

The sisters’ witness of bringing the Gospel of Jesus to the streets and sharing His Good News with everyone “showed an authenticity,” said Sister Mary, saying that inspired her to join their religious community.

Sister Mary, who was recently appointed as provincial councilor on the leadership team for the USA Province of the Religious of Jesus and Mary, described how she has been inspired by the elderly members of her community.

She noted that a sister who was a Catholic school principal for many years later went to Haiti to open small schools and now at 82 teaches young lay volunteers Creole to prepare them to serve there. Two other senior sisters work in a day care with migrant children on the U.S./Mexico border. And she said the sister who prepared her for First Holy Communion later taught at an inner-city school outside Los Angeles and now at 80 continues to prepare children for First Communion at her local parish.

Thanking SOAR! for its support to retired religious, Sister Mary added, “Pray for me that when it comes my time to enter the ranks of the ‘retired sisters,’ I will have enough energy and creativity to keep up with our retired sisters when it’s my turn!”

After Sister Mary concluded her remarks at the SOAR! dinner, a driving rain could be heard pounding the embassy’s roof. Leon Harris, the NBC4 anchor serving as master of ceremonies, said, “That’s actually God applauding you.”