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Landing Day 2026: Friends and Companions in Mission
Sarah Redikopp, Mission, Charism, and Vocations Animator, Loretto Ministries
Today, we celebrate 179 years of the Loretto Sisters in Canada!
On Landing Day, we remember the histories of the Canadian CJ province and reconnect with the mission that animates our community. This year brings extra celebration, as the first Landing Day since the unification of the two branches of Mary Ward’s Institute (the Institute of the Blessed Virgin Mary and the Congregation of Jesus) in November 2025.
On September 16, 1847, the first five Loretto Sisters landed in Toronto at Cooper’s Wharf. These young women were missioned from Ireland to North America to establish schools for growing numbers of Irish immigrant children whose families sought refuge and new life in the wake of the potato famine.
After a weeks-long transatlantic journey, Sisters Teresa Dease, Gertrude Fleming, Ignatia Hutchinson, Valentina Hutchinson, and Bonaventure Phelan arrived in Toronto with no one to meet them at the shore, no ready lodgings, and profound challenges ahead of them – including a wave of cholera and seasonal extremes that resulted in bodily injury, illness, and death. Amazingly, these women persevered, and Mother Teresa Dease went on to become the recognized Foundress of the Loretto Canadian province.
As CJ Sisters and Associates, we exist in relation to these women, and Teresa Ball and Mary Ward before them.
As I learn about the histories of the Canadian province and the women who offered their gifts in its service, I find myself in awe of their endurance and commitment. I imagine these women bearing struggles together, tending to one another, finding joy together, and encouraging one another. In many ways, it is through their relationships that the North American mission of Mary Ward’s charism lives on.
Mary Ward’s Institute began as a small circle of friends and companions who fortified one another in the face of denial and persecution. Their mutuality enabled them to respond to God’s deep dream for them, and for us: to exist as an order of engaged and apostolic women, open and available to meet the needs of our time, and free to refer all to God.
Though it looks different than in 1847, or in 1609, we too are friends and companions in mission, called to bring God’s reign of love and justice to wherever and whomever the Spirit calls us.
Happy Landing Day!
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