To Do and to Endure. Jeanne R. Beck

not have a special religious habit but dress ordinarily. They would have to go by twos into lonely settlements and be deprived of Mass and Holy Communion for a long period etc. What we need now to begin the foundation is money and candidates. But I think with God’s help we can surmount all difficulties. I wish I could have a talk with you on this matter and learn from your experience.²⁴

      Catherine taught for six weeks at Stornoway before concluding that she had discovered all that she and her clerical advisers needed to know about conditions on the immigrant frontier. Anxious to return to Toronto and continue making plans with her clerical advisers, she was relieved when the former teacher said that she was willing to take over the school again. She arrived in Toronto in late September 1921, took a room at 29 Breadalbane Street, and asked her friend Brother Rogation for a teaching job.²⁵ She did not want the proffered clerical work at the archbishop’s office, for she could earn more at her own profession and it was evident that money was urgently needed for the new order. She was pleased and grateful when he put her to work at St. Francis School teaching a class of fifty boys, and made her salary retroactive to 1 September. After Christmas he asked her to continue on staff, but as a substitute teacher as he knew she would not be teaching permanently in Toronto, and he had another experienced teacher who wanted a full-time permanent position.

      Brother Rogation continued to be a sympathetic supporter and advised Catherine strongly against sending their first applicants into the novitiate of any other order for their initial training. He felt that instead of developing a spirituality suitable to their own order, they would inevitably be influenced by and eventually absorb the spirituality of their older tutors. He thought also that she should move as soon as possible into the building suitable for their own novitiate promised by the archbishop. He mentioned that Newman Hall (at one time used by the students of St. Michael’s College) at 97 St. Joseph Street was partly furnished and vacant, and it was an ideal location, across the street from St. Basil’s Church and next door to the House of the Christian Brothers. All the necessary permissions were obtained from Archbishop McNeil for the new order to use this house, owned by the archdiocese. They were given it, rent free, and Catherine moved in some time in late autumn 1921.²⁶ She was heartened when the Catholic Women’s League arranged to have an altar and pews placed in the large front room, making it a pretty little chapel.

      Catherine had continued to teach during the autumn of 1921. She was living as frugally as possible, for she hoped that start-up funds would soon be needed. Whenever he could spare time from his onerous duties as Provincial, Father Coughlan continued to give her spiritual advice and together they consolidated their plans for the order. But she began to grow impatient, as both her teaching career and progress in starting the order seemed to be reaching a dead end. True, some decisions had been made. Archbishop McNeil and Father Coughlan accepted her choice of name for the order, Sisters of Service, and her advice on their apostolate and living style would be incorporated into their Rule when it was written. This would be the first English-speaking, Canadian-founded religious order in Canada, and its Rule would enable the sisters to bring succour and education to the rural settlers in western Canada. They would have a lifestyle which would provide them with opportunities to mingle with the secular community unencumbered by conspicuous clothing or rules which curtailed their freedom to share in the social and religious activities of the people they served.