'Saint of Soho' - Venerable Magdalen Taylor

Mother Magdalene Taylor, Design for stained glass at St Patrick's Church, Soho. © Vivienne Haig 2018. All Rights Reserved

June 9th marks the anniversary of the death of Frances Taylor, Mother Magdalen Taylor SMG (1832-1900) whose cause for Beatification is currently underway at the Vatican. She was born the tenth and youngest child of Louisa (née Jones) and the Reverend Henry Taylor, Anglican Rector of Stoke Rochford, Lincolnshire. Frances was bright and intelligent and, even at an early age, gave promise of future literary talent - which she was to use generously in service of the Church. Her happy country childhood came to an abrupt end in 1842 when her father died, and the family had to relocate to London.

Here she came under the influence of the Tracts from the High Church Oxford Movement, attending church on Sundays in the Marylebone and St Pancras areas of London. As a teenager she encountered and began work with the first Anglican Religious Order to be founded since the Reformation, the so-called 'Park Village Sisters'. Later she worked as an aspirant with Lydia Sellon's Sisters of Mercy, who ministered in the slums of London. From these Sisters she gained valuable and practical experience nursing cholera patients in Bristol and Devonport, even down to the managing wards of sick patients.

In December 1854, despite being underage, she was accepted as a volunteer nurse to join Florence Nightingale during the Crimean War. There she witnessed the faith of the Irish Catholic soldiers on their deathbeds, and the devout service of nurses drawn from the French Sisters of Charity and the Irish Sisters of Mercy. She also witnessed the unexpected death of a nurse colleague who died from a fever, in the very primitive conditions current in the military hospitals. These experiences led her to reflect deeply on her life, and given the immediacy of the threat of death, she was led to consider how ready she was to meet her Lord and Saviour. She was received into the Catholic Church on 14th April 1855, Good Shepherd Sunday, by Father Sidney Woollett SJ, an army chaplain on his way to the Front.

On her return to London, she continued her formation under the guidance of Fr Henry Manning, later to become Archbishop of Westminster, Cardinal Manning. He introduced her to charitable works, whilst simultaneously she was hardworking developing her skills as an author, in order to support herself and her immediate family. Her book Eastern Hospitals and English Nurses recounted the appalling medical conditions undergone by the soldiers in the Crimean hospitals. In 1863 she became proprietor and editor of the magazine The Lamp and in 1864, in conjunction with the Jesuits, she started a new Catholic periodical The Month. It was under her editorship that St. John Henry Newman's 'The Dream of Gerontius' was first published in the journal. In 1884 she was instrumental in helping Father Dignam SJ revive the Apostleship of Prayer through the publication of the penny magazine The Messenger of the Sacred Heart.

At this point, she wanted to dedicate her life to God through joining an existing Religious Congregation, and she tried her vocation with the Sisters of Charity in Paris, and later with the Daughters of the Heart of Mary. Neither Religious Order coincided with the nature of her calling. Her strong yearnings to discern the will of God found her on a journey to Poland where she met (the now Blessed) Edmund Bojanowski. He had founded the Little Servants Sisters of the Immaculate Conception. They worked in their local community with and for the poor, the sick, the elderly and orphans. In her words, this was the 'perfect ideal' and the model she wished to follow. She was unable to establish a branch of the Polish Congregation in London but prayer and ongoing discernment under the direction of Father Clare SJ led her to realise she would need to start a Religious Congregation of her own. In forming her new Congregation, she followed many of the ideas and practices established by Edmund Bojanowski.

In 1868, Frances Taylor was joined by three companions in rented rooms off Fleet Street, and with her benefactor Lady Georgiana Fullerton and a Belgian priest Fr Biemans, they gathered around a beautiful statue of Our Lady. Having placed their vocation to visit the poor in their homes under Mary's patronage, they had sown the seed of what was to flourish as the Congregation of the Poor Servants of the Mother of God. But the owners of the house became averse to visits from the poor. A Novena to the Immaculate Heart of Mary was commenced, and before it was over, they had been invited to minister at the OMI mission of the English Martyrs at Tower Hill. From then till now the Religious of the Oblates of Mary Immaculate are solid friends of the Poor Servants of the Mother of God.

It would take another three years of formation under the guidance of the Jesuit Fathers at the Church of the Immaculate Conception, Farm Street before Frances and her companions were ready to pronounce their Religious Vows. On 12 February 1872, the congregation was formally founded, using an adaptation of the Jesuit rule, thus becoming a member of the Ignatian Family. In July 1879 the Constitutions, Rules and Customs of the order, written under the inspiration of Fr Augustus Dignam SJ, received the 'Lauda' from Pope Leo XIII.

Frances dwelt deeply on the Mystery of the Incarnation. She commissioned a painting to show Mary in contemplation after the Angel left her. Mary was now the first Tabernacle, two hearts beating as one - God used her to give Christ to the world. Frances wished her Sisters to be like Mary, Christ-Bearers.

She nurtured a deep devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, and every foundation brought joy to her, with the establishment of another tabernacle: the Sisters often made night vigils, particularly in the communities opened in Soho and surrounding parishes. 1894 saw the Congregation celebrating its Silver Jubilee and Frances could utter in all humility, 'Lo, the finger of God is here', as houses had opened in Ireland, Paris and Rome as well as in England.

By 1896, she was becoming increasingly infirm and ill, suffering from diabetes and its consequences caused her much anxiety. Nonetheless, she continued in her abiding love and service of the poor, and constantly reminded her Sisters to be creative and inclusive in addressing all forms of poverty and misery wherever they found it. She died at 31 Soho Square on 9 June 1900. Her last words were 'Invoke the Sacred Heart'.

Today, the Sisters look to the new expressions of religious poverty, robustly respond to distress and suffering, and support people to experience their God given dignity, helping them to celebrate and fulfil their lives. All professed Sisters, Novices, Postulants, the Associates, Staff and Friends, of the Poor Servants of the Mother of God, continue Frances' great work of social, pastoral, health care, education and outreach work, in Italy, the USA, Kenya, Tanzania, Ireland, and England, corresponding to the same values espoused by Mother Magdalen Taylor.

In June 2014, Mother Magdalen was declared 'Venerable' by Pope Francis.

In 2022, the Congregation celebrated the 150th year since of its founding.

For more information see: www.poorservants.org

Contact: Paul Shaw, SMG Congregational Archivist: paul.shaw@psmgs.org.uk