[MOTHER AGNES BRENT. - DANGER OF DISPERSION.]
... Mother Agnes Brent was elected in her [Mother Mary de Sales Neale's] place, December 13, 1821. This was only six weeks after the dedication of the church. Mother Agnes, the daughter of William C. Brent and Priscilla Neale (a sister of Archbishop Neale***), was born at Port Tobacco, Maryland, October 7, 1796. At baptism she received the name of Henrietta ; but, her mother dying when she was only eight, the stepmother into whose care she subsequently passed adopted in place of this the name of Harriet. At the age of ten she lost her father ; but, although thus orphaned, she was happy in the tenderness which her stepmother lavished upon her, and in the almost paternal devotion of her guardian, James Neale, her mother's brother. Under their protection and training she remained at Port Tobacco until the age of thirteen. Then it was time for her to prepare for her first communion ; and her guardian, observing that the sprightly and beautiful child was beginning to be tinged with vanity, against which the gay and fashionable circle who frequented her home were far from offering any safeguard, determined to place her in the convent school at Georgetown. She left her pleasant home without reluctance or regret, and, after crossing the cloister threshold, showed no desire to return. Her immediate and entire contentment there was doubtless due in part to the fact that she already had acquaintances and relatives in both the school and the community ; among whom were Sister Magdalen Neale and Sister (afterwards Mother) Juliana Matthews. A simple sincere and joyous piety reigned at that time in the school ; to such a degree that, of the fourteen pupils then upon its roll, eleven afterwards embraced the religious life. ...
It is little to be wondered at that Henrietta Brent, after three years in the academy, entered the novitate. This she did when just sixteen years of age, October 15, 1812. Little more than a year later, she became afflicted with a severe and persistent backache, the effect of which was so serious that it threatened to eclipse all the brightness of her conventual life. Unable to sleep at night for the pain, whe was obliged constantly to rise from ben and seek relief in change of position ; yet, being too weak to sit up long, she soon found it necessary to lie down again ; and thus her nights were passed in moving from the bed to the chair, and from chair to bed. She lost her appetite entirely ; and, being deprived in this way both of sufficient nourishment and of sleep, she grew exceedingly emaciated during the five weary, trying years that the malady lasted. In the end a very simple remedy, a strengthening plaster, recommended by an elderly lady who had become on of her novices, gave her the relief she had long sought in vain ; and, in a few weeks she regained her health completely. A singular fact about this five years' backache is, that it was not accompanied by other discernible illness, and that it left her constitution unimpaired by any trace of infirmity. It resulted, amusingly enough, that as she was without experience in other kinds of physical suffering, she found it difficult afterwards to believe that any pain or sickness could be serious unless it was accompanied by a backache.
At the time of her election she was still very young, for the occupant of so important and exacting a post, being only twenty-five. Yet, notwithstanding her youthfulness, great expectations were entertained as to what the new Superior would achieve ; and these, as the event proved, were well grounded. In later life, also, she accomplished devoted and important work at the head of the Visitation houses in Kaskaskia, St. Louis, and Mobile, established from Georgetown. Her career was a long, as well as a useful one ; for she lived to be nearly eighty-two, dying September 16, 1876, on the Octave of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin.
Mother Agnes was remarkably prudent, and had a genuine talent for governing. ... [more]
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[***Note: other sources say that Sister Mary Agnes Brent was not a niece of Archbishop Neale, but a grand-niece. Additional proof of their relationship is needed.]
