Sr. Michele Morek, OSU, (left), and Sr. Cecelia Joseph Olinger, OSU, lead the praying of the rosary as several Ursuline Sisters of Mount Saint Joseph, as well as some visitors, walk to the cemetery in Maple Mount. This annual tradition for the feast of Our Lady of the Snows on Aug. 5 has continued for over a century. COURTESY OF MOUNT SAINT JOSEPH
Ursuline Sisters continue a century-old tradition on Feast of Our Lady of the Snows
BY MOUNT SAINT JOSEPH STAFF
On the evening of Aug. 5, 2025, the Ursuline Sisters of Mount Saint Joseph kept up a tradition that has continued for more than a century. They processed to their cemetery on the Feast of Our Lady of the Snows to honor the pioneer Ursuline Sisters who led them in becoming an independent religious community. It was Aug. 5, 1911, when Mother Agnes O’Flynn and Sister Ursula Jenkins left Owensboro, Ky., for Washington, D.C., to meet with the Apostolic Delegate to the United States. They wanted to make their case to become an autonomous community apart from the Ursuline Sisters of Louisville.
Fr. Edward Fitzgerald, the pastor of St. Paul Church and the ecclesiastical superior for their Ursuline community, wrote the history of the community for the Sisters to present. This is what Mother Agnes wrote about that moment.
“Father met us at the (train) station in Owensboro and gave us the document with the words, ‘This is the Feast of Our Lady of the Snows; I have promised our Blessed Mother that if the journey is successful, this feast will be annually observed in the Community as a day of thanksgiving and a procession to the cemetery will take place in commemoration of the departed Sisters of the Community.’”
The following year, the Ursuline Sisters of Mount Saint Joseph became an independent community.
The procession on Aug. 5, 2025, began with a few readings in the Motherhouse Chapel. Then the group walked to the cemetery while praying the rosary. Once there, they sang, “Holy Ground,” and prayed the rosary as Congregational Leader Sister Sharon Sullivan, Ursuline Associate Linda Rocco and Barbara Ervin, a Mount Saint Joseph employee, blessed the graves with holy water.
At the closing, the group did more readings together, which included, “Holy are these graves, holy this earth that has held in gentle embrace the bodies of all who are buried in this cemetery. Lord, with reverence, we leave these graves with memories and with our faith in the reality of that Easter morning when all the holy dead shall rise in the splendor of Your glory.”
