A review for Anglicans Online
by Richard Mammana

A review of
Catch the Vision: Celebrating a Century of the Order of Saint Anne
Edited by Charles Hefling with Sister Ana Clara OSA, Erica Gelser, Mary Meader, Sister Olga OSA, and Julia Slayton; Preface by Desmond Tutu
Arlington, Massachusetts: Published by the Order of Saint Anne, 2010. ISBN 9780615312637 $19.95.

This attractive recent book tells the story of the first hundred years of the Order of Saint Anne, an American-founded Anglican women’s religious community with two houses today in the United States.

The order was formed in 1910 by Mother Etheldred Breeze Barry (1870-1967) with Cowley Father Frederick Cecil Powell (1865-1938) in the private chapel of “the Small House at Arlington”—a sweet allusion to Trollope’s Allington—owned by Miss Barry. With combined conventual prayer and a devotion to care for children, the Order of Saint Anne grew quickly in the atmosphere of pre-War and inter-War Anglo-Catholicism. In time, it would establish houses around the world: in England (1917-1973) China (1916-1942, 1946-1951), New Zealand (1919-1922), the Virgin Islands (1921-1930), the Philippines (1952-1971), and in several parts of the United States. (A helpful chart shows the lineage of each house and its dates of duration.) Today, the two autonomous houses of the Order are in Chicago (since 1921, with four sisters) and Arlington, Massachusetts (with five sisters).

Catch the Vision is in many ways an ideal centennial history, with an attractive combination of historical chapters by Charles Hefling, most of which are followed by “interludes” offering reflections by individuals whose lives have been touched by the OSA in some way. Important interludes are by Margaret Guenther on the spirit of welcome she has known at Arlington; and by Sheryl Kujawa-Holbrook on her vision of the Order’s history as a “chorus of women’s voices.” Contributions by Bishop M. Thomas Shaw SSJE and Curtis Almquist SSJE underscore the ongoing connections between the Cowley Fathers and the Order of Saint Anne. Mother Etheldred’s drawings and illuminations are a delightful part of the book, scattered throughout its pages along with high-quality modern photography and archival images. Perhaps the only real shortcoming of the volume is that only three pages of the 112 are devoted to the Chicago house of the Order.

A sense of gratitude and hopefulness pervades this modern reflection on a monastic order’s particular charisms as they have developed over time. Desmond Tutu’s words from the Preface are typical in their deep appreciation for the ongoing work of prayer by the Order of Saint Anne: “At Bethany every leaf and tree, every stone and flower seems to be infused with the prayers of the faithful. People have prayed here. Now, after a hundred years, a small band of people so transparently holy, serene, and yes, joyous—even somewhat mischievous, with a twinkle in their eyes—hold open the spaciousness of the holy for people of every faith who come here to pray.”

The book’s apt and wonderful title comes from Henry Lucius Moultrie Cary SSJE, a keen supporter of the Order’s life:

Catch the vision. Hold it in trust. Preserve it. Carry it on. You have always to be looking further, opening doors and going through them. All before was but a preparation for something further.

Catch the Vision is ample evidence that the Order of Saint Anne continues to catch, hold, preserve, and carry, but also to look forward and to open doors and go through them.