History of SMR Altar Bread Ministry

Providing altar breads have been a very long-standing ministry for the Sisters of Mary Reparatrix in several of the places where our sisters have lived and ministered. This has been a wonderful ministry for our sisters. Vatican II tells us that the Eucharistic Liturgy is the “summit toward which the Christian life is directed and the very source of that life to begin with.” This ministry was to provide the actual bread for the celebrations – an incomparable honor to be sure and a service which was deeply appreciated by us.

Not only was this an esteemed ministry, it also provided significant financial support for the SMR communities that allowed us to engage in other ministerial activities, specifically retreat ministry in its varied forms.

In reviewing the congregational archives, we learned that the sisters began the altar bread ministry in New York City in November 1911. The sisters were then living in mid-town Manhattan, on East 29th Street, and the ministry remained there until the sisters moved to Queens, New York in 1984. The altar bread ministry moved with them and now, after thirty-six more years, is coming to completion as of September 30, 2020. We are pleased that the Poor Clare Sisters of Chesterfield, New Jersey would welcome our altar bread contacts.

It would be impossible to mention all the sisters who participated in this work during that century, but we do wish to give special mention to Sister Pat Mullen who has perhaps served the longest, having had this responsibility for more than forty years.

In Detroit, Michigan, the sisters were also engaged in the altar bread ministry. The residence and retreat house building on Quincy Avenue was built in 1928 and the altar bread ministry began in 1930. The department flourished there and moved with the sisters to another Detroit location, in St. Gemma’s Parish, in 1977. Finally, the sisters discerned that it was time to hand over this ministry to another community of religious women. This decision was made in June 1987.

The third of the sister’s altar bread departments was in Cincinnati. The Franciscan Sisters of Hartwell offered the work to the sisters in 1971. In 1980, the large retreat house was closed, and the infirm Sisters of Mary Reparatrix moved from Cincinnati to Latham, New York. The altar bread ministry also moved to East Greenbush, New York, a setting close to the infirmed sisters. Several years later, in 1989, the department was moved to Yonkers, New York and in 1977, moved to Riverview, Michigan. For another twenty years it remained a ministry and source of financial support. In 2017, the ministry was handed over to the IHM Sisters of Monroe, Michigan.

Margaret Hoey

Painting by Bertha Fox, smr