December 11, 1899
Our dear Mother Phelan, born in Ireland, was the daughter of Daniel Phelan and Elizabeth Dalton. As the family had settled in Canada, she came to know the Grey Nuns of Montreal et requested her admission to their noviciate on February 19, 1845, the day our founding sisters departed Montreal for our Bytown mission, now Ottawa. The Mother Superior of the Montreal community offered her the chance of joining this mission as they needed people who spoke English, which she accepted; she arrived in Bytown only the following autumn and she entered the noviciate September 16, 1945, aged 22 years and 9 days.
Sister Phelan was recognized as a person of great hope according to many reports: she already possessed a lot of care and a maturity on which the Mother Superiors could count for the most difficult of tasks; gentle and compassionate for the less fortunate, she was a real sister of charity towards the sick in the hospital as well as the poor and the afflicted of the City that she was charged with visiting for quite a long time. As well, she was blessed with good health which allowed her to accomplish the different types of work needed by the Foundation.
Sister Phelan made her profession of faith on September 8, 1847. This was the same year that the typhus epidemic ravaged the Irish immigrants who had recently taken refuge in Canada. In the middle of the great need were the sisters who cared for the sick in the Montreal emergency hospitals, Mother McMullan, Superior General of the Grey Nuns asked for help from the Bytown mission. Even though this mission was not in the best of condition as was the Mother House, our reverend Mother Bruyère wanted to answer the call and she sent Sister Phelan to help.
The Montreal community could not hire the same services that this dear sister gave at this time. Her methods which were firm and discreet, were greatly needed at this time when it was necessary to surmount many difficulties. The other sisters respected her, loved her, and had complete confidence in her abilities. Sister Phelan spent seven months doing this valuable charitable work with great devotion after which she returned to Bytown.
In 1851, she went to the Parish of Saint André, in the Diocese of Kingston, to open a mission but she returned the next year to be near our Mother Bruyère whom she did not leave to then go in 1866 to take over the direction of the Buffalo convent. During this time, she was their pharmacist for three years; in charge of the novices for three years and for about another eight years, she was the assistant and general treasurer of the convent at the same time. She had a lot of tasks that challenged her personally as well as her initiative in the middle of the very rapid development that all these tasks created.
She spent eight years in Buffalo where her memory is venerated, she was then Superior of Plattsburg for one year when, in 1877, she became General Assistant of our Congregation, under our beloved Mother Marie of the Sacred Heart, who was elected Superior General and whom she replaced in 1879 in the governance of the Congregation.
In these various important positions, our Mother Phelan worked tirelessly to maintain within us our positive spirit; she loved to have reigning within our residences a family spirit and she took advantage of all possible opportunities to maintain this spirit, such as sending out numerous newsletters which she sent out to the members of our congregation during her term as Superior. For this reason and so that the memories of our venerable founding Mothers and of the work accomplished by them be preserved, Mother Phelan, during her administration, started compiling the history of the congregation since its foundation, compiling the very precious memories of our religious families.
She saw that, within the missions as well as within the Mother House, the annals were carefully kept up to date. It was she who was the first to compile in writing their day-to-day life, a work she considered of great importance to maintain the institute’s raison d’être. She also compiled necessary material to create the “Manual of Prayers for the Sisters’ Use”. Also, when she finished her responsibilities at the end of her five- year term of office as Superior General, the general chapter thanked her for the important services she had rendered to the congregation, especially by gifting her with the two very precious books.
In 1881, while Superior General, the Mother Phelan fell while getting down from a vehicle. This accident, which was not deemed very serious at first, became for her the beginning of a difficult period of another kind. During several months she was bed ridden, after which she experienced great difficulty walking. However, despite this type of infirmity, she directed the Ottawa General Hospital for twelve years, which became her responsibility following her five-year term of office as Superior General in 1884.
She maintained order and consistency within this institution winning the confidence of the different classes of people she interacted with. But a more painful illness added itself to her handicap and Mother Phelan became completely immobile. She then asked that she be relieved of her duties as head of the congregation and to return to the Mother House, which request the authorities believed should be granted.
From that time on, this noble senior wished nothing more than to use the time the Lord left to her to prepare herself for her last eternal voyage. As long as the handicap which afflicted her did not stop her from going to chapel, she could be seen assisting at mass and receiving holy communion. In her room, she spent the greater part of the day in prayer, especially for the needs of the congregation for which she offered up her many hours of suffering.
Just like other senior sisters who had preceded her into a better world, she exemplified the virtues of a good sister: obedience, acting in accordance with the holy will of God and in a constant union with our Lord. A victim herself of an illness, she did not forget the other sisters who were suffering or weak and asked about them every day. She expressed interest with the missions, their progress, their successes, which were the aims of her prayers, because she was concerned about everything involving her religious family.
In November 1899, the health of our venerable patient became much worse, and it was suggested that she be given the last sacraments; she received them with faith and piety which was always part of her personality.
During the few remaining weeks of her life, she continued her relationship with the divine spouse of her soul. On December 11th, end-of-life signs were in evidence, and she received that morning the Holy Viaticum for the last time. Near one in the afternoon, she seemed to lose consciousness; we recited prayers for the sick and the rosary. At three o’clock, she breathed her last and slept in the peace of the Lord, carrying with her our sorrow for losing another of our venerable Mothers.
The funeral mass was sung by his excellency Monsignor Duhamel. The Cathedral Chapter members who were gathered there that day witnessed the R. P. University Rector and other priests from that institution as well as from Hull assisting in the funeral mass. Seeing that so many priests came to pray homage to this worthy religious, we like to believe that the Lord wanted to award her for her great faith, her respect for the priests and of the consideration she paid to them on every occasion.
In recognition of the services that Mother Phelan rendered to the Mother House in Montreal, at the beginning of her religious life, this community was represented at the funeral by two sisters.
She herself left behind one of her own sisters, Sister Marie-Patrice.
Mother Phelan was 76 years, two months and 24 days of age and has spent 54 years, two months, and 15 days in the religious life.
During the time Mother Phelan administered the community as Superior General, she witnessed the founding of our Sainte-Anne Hospital, built in 1879, to treat contagious diseases. It is built on land that was a cemetery, on the Côte de Sable. It was a rare and admirably devoted effort on her part. That same year, the Bethlehem Shelter for foundlings opened, a project founded by the Venerable Mother d’Youville. Many of these unfortunate infants died before being baptized if they were not welcomed by the hands of Charity. In 1880, the community accepted to run schools in the parishes of the Immaculate Conception and of Saint-Joseph in Lowell, Mass. In this same year, she also took charge of classes in Medina, N.Y.
R. I. P.
Adapted for web with permission from the Archives of the Sisters of Charity of Ottawa.