Sr. Matilda Fagan, CCVI (1923 - 2024)

The Mission of the Incarnate Word Sisters: “It’s not a verbal message. It’s how you treat people.”

That simple expression summarizes Sister Matilda Fagan’s decades of service as a teacher and as a librarian. At 89, even in retirement, she was spending several hours every day in the Archives, documenting the lives of the many Sisters who taught in different schools and worked as nurses in various hospitals owned or sponsored by the Congregation. The Incarnate Word Sisters were her family, and her life was one of service.

It all began in a very subtle way: “Nobody came out of the church or out of the tabernacle and tapped me on the shoulder. It’s a growing desire that begins in childhood, and as you begin to think about what you are going to do with your life. You just get a desire for service. The missionary life was very much in my mind…”

But it was nourished by a very spiritual environment: “There was morning prayer in the family, and evening prayer. We went to morning Mass. We were encouraged to attend the sacraments [and] participate [in Church events]. As I said, we were just across the street from the parish church, and service there was on a regular basis. I went to school with nuns, and prayer opened every class. [We were familiar with] the laws of the Church, the scriptures, and prayer. Dedication and service to the neighbor was all considered very much part of life.”

She entered the convent as a teenager, before finishing high school. She began teaching in grade schools while she earned a B.A. and worked on a certificate for teaching high school English. All in all, she spent twenty-five years teaching in Texas and Louisiana. Then she went back to school to get a Masters degree in Library Science, which she used at Incarnate Word College Librarian for twenty-nine years.

It wasn’t “a job” – or in Sister Matilda’s case, even two jobs; it was a life of dedication, of “being of help.”

Sister Matilda found a family in her fellow Incarnate Word Sisters. Early on, the Superior General took the time to drive the young Matilda to the optometrist to get her eyes checked after which she took the “cloistered” postulant on a walking and driving tour of the historic San Antonio. Many years later, at a convent where all the Sisters had some maintenance duties, the Mother Superior, who was also the Principal of the High School, used Sister Matilda’s bucket and mop, and as she was returning them remarked with a smile, “[I borrowed them without permission, but] “don’t tell the high authorities.”

Later, Sister Matilda read about her “family” in the Sisters’ Archives: “The first mothers (Superiors) wrote voluminous letters, and they have been translated, because some of them were in French. [The letters were] sent out to sisters, individual sisters, and communities, and were chatty and wonderful, and explained how things were and so on.  It was like the in-dealings for the family, they even had nicknames for each other. For example, Mother St Pierre Cinquin referred to one of the Sisters as Goosey. In her letter, she would say Sister Goosey did this, or [when writing about] Sister Mary of the Sacred Heart Bradley, she referred to her as “Hearty,” and so Hearty went to town and Hearty did this, and Hearty did that. Just like within a family, her letters are absolutely delightful, and when you read those letters, you get the full flavor of [who Mother St. Pierre was], and she was also very fond of the little orphan children.”

If all these stories sound “homey,” the Incarnate Word Sisters were really Sister Matilda’s family for eighty-five years.  Along with witnessing the construction of new buildings at the convent and at the University, she has known dozens of other Incarnate Word Sisters personally or through her work as an archivist and interacted with hundreds of students. In her later years, she looked at her long life of service with muted but great satisfaction.

Sister Fagan describes her evolving vocation to service.