Mary Ward's birthday is today 23rd January:  Loreto and IBVM Sisters celebrate Mary Ward week every year from 23rd (Birthday) to the day of her death - 30th January.  Mary Ward was born in Mulwith near Ripon, Yorkshire.  In baptism she received the name Jane.

Welcome to Mary Ward week for 2012.  Last year we celebrated 400 years since Mary Wards insight that the rule she was to adopt for her own fledgling congregation was that of the Society Jesus. From that moment she set her course and in so doing traversed not only the physical terraine of Alps, seas and plains, but the terrain of gender inequality, extreme poverty and sheer not knowingness.  Having left her homeland to find the will of the One she loved and followed, the journeys were sometimes difficult in the extreme, but she was able to write in 1616:  One sees the danger of adverse things, but without fear, anxiety or trouble, and quiet confidence that God will do His will even in confusion.