On Aug. 30, I made the trip from my convent in Southeast Washington down to Mechanicsville in St. Mary’s County to meet my distant cousin, Eleanor Fenwick Ripple. Though the drive was less than two hours, this family reunion took us all back nearly 400 years into the rich Catholic history of Southern Maryland.
Grown children of immigrant families in America sometimes make the pilgrimage back to the “Old Country” to see the village they came from and maybe meet some distant relatives. Whether this means countries like Poland, France, Vietnam, Ghana, or El Salvador, they forge a connection by tracing their common last name to the city or town, and then by reconstructing their genealogy. Visitors may meet their first, second or third cousins, the descendants of the brother or sister of a grandparent or even great-great-grandmother, for example. In my trip from Washington, D.C. back to the “Old Country” of Southern Maryland, I met my sixth cousin four times removed!
Born in Washington, D.C., I have always known some things about “where we came from,” but I had very little interest in the details. I knew generally that nearly all of our Catholic family came to Maryland from England to escape religious persecution. But it wasn’t until after my mother died in 2013 that I found all kinds of charts and letters and information about the strongly Catholic heritage of our family roots in Southern Maryland, including our place in the Fenwick family. As a religious sister, I became especially interested in knowing how the religious persecution in England brought about the early seeds of the Catholic faith in the United States.
Cuthbert Fenwick (1614-1655) was among the many English Catholic settlers and indentured servants who came to Southern Maryland in the 17th century looking for relief from the anti-Catholic persecution in their own native land. The two famous ships, the Ark and the Dove, brought a mixed group of Catholics and non-Catholics to Maryland under the direction of Jesuit Andrew White. They came ashore at St. Clement’s Island on March 25, 1634, and gave thanks to God for the safe passage by celebrating the first Catholic Mass in the British Colonies of North America.
Perhaps already present in the colony by 1633, it is likely that Cuthbert Fenwick helped to prepare the way for those arriving on the Ark and the Dove. He was a staunch Catholic from Northumbria whose name is first listed in the colony’s records as an indentured servant of Thomas Cornwallis, the chief councilor of Governor Leonard Calvert. Fenwick soon gained his freedom, continued to serve the needs of the new colony, sat in the Maryland assembly of 1638, and undertook various projects with the Jesuits.
Unbeknownst to him, Cuthbert Fenwick was to have two great-great-great-grandsons who were among America’s first Catholic bishops following the War of Independence. Bishop Edward Dominic Fenwick, OP (1768-1823) became the first bishop of Cincinnati, Ohio, and his third cousin, Bishop Benedict Joseph Fenwick, SJ (1782-1846), served as the first bishop of Boston. Among the Fenwicks there were many Dominican friars, Jesuits, and religious sisters, too. Some Fenwicks have stayed down in St. Mary’s County from the beginning, while others of us moved up to “Washington City” and ever further afield.
Arriving in Mechanicsville on a hot August afternoon, Sister Star of Evangelization and I followed our GPS past Amish farms to a gravel driveway. Frank Ripple greeted us as he came from the large vegetable garden. Inside, the Sacred Heart of Jesus is the first thing a guest sees when stepping into the home of Eleanor and her husband Deacon Ammon Ripple. Sacred art and hundreds of books adorn the walls of the simple country house. A mutual friend, Billy Fitzgerald, had made the connection for us and even graciously provided a typical Southern Maryland dinner: stuffed ham, fried chicken, potato salad and coleslaw. The Ripples invited all their local children and grandchildren, as well as other Fenwick cousins to meet me.
Before everyone arrived, Eleanor and I exchanged notes on our family connections, but immediately discovered that our deepest “family connection” was in Christ. Despite a long illness, Eleanor is serene and clearly radiant with the love of God. We could “speak the same language” because more than being heirs of “Fenwick blood,” we were kin in the Blood of the Lamb.
Deep love for Jesus Christ, His Blessed Mother and all the treasures of our Catholic faith once drove Cuthbert Fenwick to leave his home and come to this unknown land. We immediately recognized that love still lives in both of us. Our common Catholic heritage in Southern Maryland is not only a legacy of the past, but also the most important part of the present. Our faith shapes the future of the family here below, and has made for us “an imperishable inheritance” (1 Peter 1:4) in Heaven where, we hope, much of our family has gone on ahead.
This is a part of the Fenwick family story, but it is the true Catholic family story for all of us. Every Catholic in the United States has spiritual roots in Southern Maryland.
Together with Father Larry Swink and Joe Melenderez, I look forward to sharing this same enthusiasm for our common Catholic Maryland heritage at “The Journey”: High School Pilgrimage to St. Clement’s Island on Saturday, Sept. 24, 2022. Sponsored by the Catholic parishes of Southern Maryland, the event will include a free boat ride out to the island, and a day of prayer, Holy Mass, talks, sports, lunch and dinner right there where the Catholic Church in America began. Registration is still open at https://southernmarylandroots.org/the-journey or contact southernmarylandroots@gmail.com.
What I received in connecting with the Fenwicks in Mechanicsville is available to all of us who grasp the gift of faith and the mystery of God’s work in history. Pray for the pilgrimage to the Catholic Roots of Southern Maryland, and bring a high school group if you can.
(Sister Maria Theotokos is a Religious Sister of the Congregation of the Servants of the Lord and the Virgin of Matará who lives in the convent at Holy Comforter-St. Cyprian Parish in Washington, D.C.)
