The towns that the Spaniards of colonial Mexico planted on their northern frontier were organized around the ideal of a close interaction between church, missionary outreach, and military. San Antonio was the most successful realization of this dream in Texas. The pattern of this tripartite approach has continued to shape the rich culture of the city down to the present. With this selection of photos, San Antonio's Churches takes a snapshot visit back through religious development throughout the three centuries of San Antonio's history.

In 1943 the bell attached to a rope on both floors of a plain box-like convent in Houston, Texas, rang at 5 a.m. The nine Sisters of Divine Providence stationed at the grade school arose, reciting aloud the traditional prayer that began “Live, Jesus, in my heart! My God, I give you my heart. Mercifully deign to receive it and grant that no creature shall possess it but Thou alone.” Continuing to pray aloud for five more minutes, the Sisters who shared small bedrooms began to dress. All had developed in their novitiate a rhythm for this process, which launched each day in a uniform way. Over 20 items of dress had to be donned in a certain order. Before Morning Prayer at 5:25 in the small chapel on the first floor, the Sisters also stripped their single beds, flipped the thin mattresses, and replaced the bed linens, trying not to invade a companion’s limited space. Usually it was still dark outside when they started to recite morning prayers unique to the Congregation. This was followed by chanting in Latin on one tone Matins, Lauds, Prime, Tierce, Sext, and None from the Little Office of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Then the superior read aloud some points for reflection, and the Sisters meditated in silence for half an hour. This was the first time of the day they had some relatively unstructured time, and they sometimes experienced “distractions.” Perhaps they planned how to teach something better or recalled problematic students. At 6:30 one of the parish priests offered Mass, which was followed by breakfast. The Sisters ate in silence while one of them read passages from the Imitation of Christ. By 8 a.m. they were leading their pupils across the playground to the children’s daily Mass in the parish church. In sharp contrast, in 1990 Sister Mary Walter Gutowski, CDP, one of two Sisters living in a small apartment, was the administrator of Our Lady of Guadalupe clinic for low income Latinos and African Americans in Rosenberg, Texas. Sister Walter, who was credited with having delivered more than 3,000 babies under difficult rural circumstances, once remarked, “When someone knocks at my door in the middle of the night, I get dressed in two minutes flat because I never know what will be waiting for me outside.”1 What explains this dramatic change of style and ritual in the routines of Catholic Sisters living in mission houses? How did the Sisters move from cloisters to apartments? How did the rigid routines of the nine Sisters of 1943 transmute into the singular and unstructured life of Sister Mary Walter? What are the connections between the bell that rang at five in the morning and the one that sounded at any hour? This history examines the period of 1943 to 2000, an era during which the Sisters of Divine Providence redefined their perspective and practices within the context of a changing American Catholic church. It demonstrates that the Sisters were well situated to embrace the shifting demands of religious mission because their very heritage was grounded in ongoing transformations. Those transformations were played out on a highly charged stage of oppression concerning multi-racial relationships, one that further prepared the Sisters for the intense dynamics of modern church life. When the Sisters celebrated in 1966 the centennial of their arrival in Texas, they were staffing their own college, high schools, and numerous grammar schools in several states as well as hospitals, clinics, and neighborhood centers. They had incorporated a group of women from Mexico and encouraged the independence of a new Providence congregation in the U.S. Responding to Vatican encouragement, after the second Vatican Council they began experiments to update structures and customs so as minister more effectively. The most visible were in the areas of community living and governance and were accompanied by greater collegiality, subsidiarity, variety in prayer

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Even before the Depression, unemployment, low wages, substandard housing, and poor health plagued many women in what was then one of America's poorest cities--San Antonio. Divided by tradition, prejudice, or law into three distinct communities of Mexican Americans, Anglos, and African Americans, San Antonio women faced hardships based on their personal economic circumstances as well as their identification with a particular racial or ethnic group. Women of the Depression, first published in 1984, presents a unique study of life in a city whose society more nearly reflected divisions by the concept of caste rather than class. Caste was conferred by identification with a particular ethnic or racial group, and it defined nearly every aspect of women's lives. Historian Julia Kirk Blackwelder shows that Depression-era San Antonio, with its majority Mexican American population, its heavy dependence on tourism and light industry, and its domination by an Anglo elite, suffered differently as a whole than other American cities. Loss of migrant agricultural work drove thousands of Mexican Americans into the barrios on the west side of San Antonio, and with the intense repatriation fervor of the 1930s, the fear of deportation inhibited many Mexican Americans from seeking public or private aid. The author combines excerpts from personal letters, diaries, and interviews with government statistics to present a collective view of discrimination and culture and the strength of both in the face of crisis.

GOD HAS BEEN GOD FOR US In 1929, just at the onset of the Great Depression, San Antonio diocesan priest, Peter Baque, pastor of St. Peter Prince of the Apostles Catholic Church on North Broadway, found himself unable to meet the needs of a segment of his parish then known as "Cementville." This small village was a company town under the auspices of the Alamo Portland Cement Company whose residents all worked in the cement quarry on the northern edge of Baque's parish. Baque, believing that the people of Cementville would be receptive to the ministry of women religious, decided that this was the time to begin a community of women who would be especially ready to "reach out with a loaf of bread in one hand and the love of Christ in the other." With the help of Eugenie Olivier Edwards, the widowed mother of nine living children who professed her vows as Mother Theresa, Baque began the Missionary Servants of St. Anthony. God Has Been God for Us chronicles the eighty-year history of this religious community. From the depression years until the present day, the Sisters have supported Father Baque's dream to foster devotion to St. Anthony de Padua through the Shrine to St. Anthony which is now an adoration chapel on their property in front of St. Anthony de Padua Parish. Other ministries of the Missionary Servants established during these 80 years include a home for Catholic working girls in downtown San Antonio; a day nursery now celebrating 75 years of service; Padua Place, a home for infirm or aging priests in its 50th year of operation; and a retreat center located at the motherhouse property at 100 Peter Baque Road. Relying solely on the providential care of God, the Missionary Servants of St. Anthony evidence the character of missionaries instilled in them by Father Baque and the humility and simplicity of servitude modeled for them by Mother Theresa. Their story will inspire the reader to say with them "God has been God for me." Sister Diane Langford, CDP, a Sister of Divine Providence for 30 years, writes, gives retreats, and teaches adult Catholics who want to grow in the faith. This is her third book. She has written a manual to be used in teaching adults who are preparing to be Catholics and The Tattered Heart, a historical fiction biography of Mother St. Andrew Feltin, Texas foundress of the Sisters of Divine Providence of San Antonio, Texas.

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