EARLY LIFE

Margaret Mary Angela Walker, the fifth of the six children of Colonel Edward Walker and Josephine Woodhead, was born on the March 16 1881 in Brighton, England. After her education, she joined the Religious Sisters of Charity at Milltown, Dublin, Ireland, in 1901. In 1902 she received the habit and took the name, Sister Mary Charles. She made her Religious Profession in 1904, after which she spent nineteen years teaching in various schools in Ireland. She exemplified herself as a great educationist and wrote two books: the Catechism Notes and Caritas Christi Urget Nos, which at the time were very much used in schools in England, Ireland and in the Novitiate of the Sisters of Charity respectively.

MISSIONARY WORK IN NIGERIA

Missionary Call

In 1920 Sister Mary Charles had a missionary call to come to Nigeria to assist Bishop Joseph Shanahan C.S.Sp. of Southern Nigeria, who had earlier on (between 1919 and 1922) appealed to Religious Congregations in Europe for Sisters to help in the training of women and children in southern Nigeria. Since no Congregation would come out as a body, Sister Mary Charles Walker of the Sisters of Charity and a few others of her Order volunteered to go. Later on the rest dropped the idea but Sister Mary Charles persevered in her intention and sought official permission to achieve it. On September 14 1921, she wrote to Mother Agnes Gertrude, her Superior General:

I beg your sanction and blessing… If you refuse your sanction, Mother, there is the end of the matter for ever.

The Superior General then permitted her to write to the Holy Father through Cardinal Bourne of Westminster, London, and with his help, Sister Mary Charles obtained a special Rescript, dated 11th June 1923, from the Holy Father, permitting her to come out as a missionary to Southern Nigeria, under Bishop Joseph Shanahan while still remaining a Sister of charity, but living outside her community.

Sister Mary Charles arrived at Calabar October 3 1923. She was then the only woman Religious in the Vicariate of southern Nigeria which, founded in 1885, comprised Nigeria east, north and south of the Niger and the British Cameroon. Here she was known and called Mother Magdalen, a name she adopted in memory of her sister who died just before she set out for Nigeria. (Except where it occurs in quotations, the rest of this article will use the name, Mother Mary Charles Magdalen Walker or simply, Mother, given to her by her spiritual Daughters – the Handmaids of the Holy Child Jesus).

Fields of Missionary Apostolate

Mother Mary Charles Magdalen Walker believed that for a missionary to succeed, she should be prepared to turn her hand to many works besides the actual one which is her special strong point. This explains why, while in Nigeria, she was single handedly an educationist, an architect, a social worker, a nurse, a catechist and a Foundress.

Educationist

She gave an all-round, utilitarian education, seasoned with strong character formation. She quickly re-organised the St Joseph’s Girls’ School, Calabar, which was at the point of being closed down, when she took over in 1924. She introduced the Montessori Method for a more effective training as well as the Student-Teachers system to cope with Staff insufficiency. She enlarged the curriculum to include Domestic Science and Home Management. The School reached such a high standard that after Government inspection in 1926, it was classed A+. Bishop Joseph Shanahan was overwhelmed with joy and wrote in appreciation to Mother Mary Charles Magdalen:

I congratulate you and your girls of St. Joseph’s Convent School on the success you have achieved in being classed A+… It is the first time in the history of the mission that a Girls’ School has honourably carried off the much converted honour of being officially classified EXCELLENT… 
(Shanahan to Walker, November 19 1927).

She opened a similar School in Anua in 1929 through the help of Rev. Fr. Biechy C.S.Sp., the Founder of the Anua Mission. Monsignor Hinsley, Papal delegate to Nigeria, in 1929 made an appraisal of these two schools as published in Times PhiladelphiaJanuary 14 1930:

At Calabar, Nigeria, in the Efik country Sister Magdalen has worked wonders among the women and girls. Her schools at Calabar and Anua are considered the best Girls’ Schools in the country and her name is known to all who are interested in African Education…

She wrote many educational Articles and Papers which were published in magazines and journals. Her Article, Education for Girls in Southern Nigeria, published in theInternational Review of Missions in 1928, portrays her high ideals as regards Girls Education. The following quotations illustrate some of these salient points:

The first great need in a girls school is to train the girls in self-control, cleanliness, self respect, earnestness and reliability…Earnestness and reliability are the outcome of the gradual growth of concentration. For a sense of responsibility to develop there must be actual responsibility, small at first but increasing to matters of importance. The Native girl is capable of becoming reliable to an extraordinary degree. In fact, I find her capable of excelling in every virtue; only time, patience and opportunity are required…

She inculcated these qualities in her girls and Teachers as recalled by one of her contemporaries:

Combined with Sister Magdalen’s teaching her teachers and children as Christians was her gift for encouraging the full development of their Personalities…
(Memories of Miss Margaret Green, August 7 1973).

The result of this training was remarkable in the girls and Teachers; responsibility, maturity, efficiency and discipline prevailed.

A Designer and Architect

Her building programme included the training of unskilled workers with startling results. In her foresightedness, and wishing the best for her children, she acquired a ten-acre piece of land, to which she transferred the St. Joseph’s School in 1929. Mother Mary Amadeus, Superior General of the Society of the Holy Child Jesus, whom Mother Mary Charles Magdalen had invited and persuaded to come to Nigeria in 1930, through Monsignor Hinsley, gives a vivid description of her plan of work.

…Eighteen years ago it (the plot of land) was given by an influential family here to the mission, on condition that building was begun upon it in three months. After eighteen years the family said they would take it back as nothing was being done. The authorities were willing to let it go, but at that moment Sister heard of it and asked if she might have it and build a Convent and a school on it. Permission was given and she at once set to work… The work was begun two years ago last February… She is her own architect and her plans have been passed by three Government Departments… She is her own builder, overseer, clerk of the work and every other official that may be required. The cottages (four one-storey buildings) for the children are already built, the ground plan of the school staked out also by Sister and most of the cement blocks are already made. She has the whole place, building and land planned out with a view to future developments 
(Letter of Mother Mary Amadeus from Calabar to the Sisters SHCJ in Rome, 27th September, 1930).

Three days later, Mother Mary Genevieve, the Vicar General-Society of the Holy Child Jesus who had accompanied Mother Mary Amadeus on her visit to Calabar, Nigeria, wrote to their communities in Europe,

…Mother Magdalen is a broad minded woman with long views… She believes in the elevating power of beauty…she is putting up buildings which will be at once durable, convenient, agreeable and harmonious… Generations to come will certainly call her blessed 
(Mother Mary Genevieve, SHCJ to the Sisters SHCJ in Europe, 23rd September, 1930).

This premises is the present MOTHER HOUSE of the Handmaids of the Holy Child Jesus, Calabar Road, Calabar, Nigeria. Here too lie the Remains of Mother Mary Charles Magadalen Walker.

Social Worker

Mother Charles was a special friend of the poor and the needy, many of whom she helped to be self- reliant. She saved many twins and their mothers from the extermination which was practiced among the pagans at the time. She built an Orphanage and Twinnery in Anua in 1929. Another one was later built in Ifuho, Ikot Ekpene. Many poor girls had free education through her generosity and magnanimous spirit. She visited the poor and the aged in their homes and cared for them. Those of them who could walk came weekly for subsidy. She strove to promote the status of women in the area.

The Nurse

She gave weekly instructions to the women and children on health and hygiene. She opened a Dispensary in Anua-Uyo in 1929 which she managed herself, assisted by one of her Teachers, Miss Lucy Williams, destined to became the first member of the Congregation of the Handmaids of the Holy Child Jesus. Later, with the help of Dr. Luber and two Nurses, a Hospital was built alongside the Dispensary, which developed into the present St. Luke’s Hospital, Anua, Uyo.

A Catechist

Catechetical and Pastoral work received great attention in Mother Mary Charles Magdalen Walker’s missionary endeavours. For her, the role played by a Christian home in the building up of Christ’s Mystical Body–the Church– for effective evangelisation, was paramount. This is shown in her paper published in the Holy Ghost Missionary Annals of 1926:

…The Church grows through making adult converts, and in some cases these prove satisfactory, but it is only on those who have been trained to Christian habits of virtue from childhood that a really vigorous and lasting Native Church can be built; and this solid Christian teaching can be given only in a Christian home and by a Christian mother…

Mother Mary Charles Magdalen Walker took pains to instruct the women in every virtue and to place before them the example of Mary, the Model of Christian motherhood. She helped them to value the dignity of womanhood, and urged them to lead good Christian lives and thereby gain the honour due to them as women. She exhorted them to care for their children, and to train them in Christian ideals. Pre-marriage centres were opened in Calabar and Anua where formal lessons were taught in Christian Doctrine, Domestic Science, Home Management and Crafts.

There were chains of instruction centres for the Calabar and the Anua areas. From 1931, many of these centres became residential centres manned by the Foundation members of the Congregation of the Handmaids of the Holy Child Jesus, the Lay Teachers trained by Mother Mary Charles Magadalen Walker and the Holy Child Sisters who had come out in 1930 to assist her. Mother Mary Charles Magdalen Walker with the help of her girls used to visit the sick and aged in their homes, prepare them for the Sacraments, and give them material assistance. She also washed the altar linens and took care of the church generally.

Prayer Life and Spirituality

Mother Mary Charles Magdalen Walker was a woman of deep faith, apostolic zeal, contemplation and total surrender to God’s will in the events of life. Often she would say:

I am perfectly satisfied that things are arranged as God wills.

She was a woman of prayer and of intimate union with God. She believed that prayer could do all things and regarded Christ as the solution of all (her) difficulties. She could move from contemplation to work with ease. She had a self-effacing charity, and would not cling to anything. She was very forbearing and ready to forgive injuries and misunderstanding with the conviction that God could smooth things out and repair injuries done in ways which we cannot think of. She had an unflinching trust in Divine Providence and great devotion to the Heart of Jesus and the Blessed Sacrament.

Foundress

Mother Mary Charles Magdalen Walker had the singular privilege of being able to inspire, attract and nurture the Foundation Members of Native Congregations especially those of the first four members of the Handmaids of the Holy Child Jesus. Barely a year after she arrived Calabar she wrote:

There is great promise in the native girls and I believe that in the years to come a Native Congregation could be formed… 
(Letter on Easter Monday 1924 to her Superior General)

She also communicated her discovery to His Lordship, Bishop Joseph Shanahan, who encouraged her to tend these vocations:

For many years I have had the view of forming a Native Sisterhood in this Vicariate. If its establishment has been delayed, it is because in the first place, among the Christian girls there seemed to be no vocations to the Religious Life; and secondly, even if there were, in the Vicariate, there were no Religious competent to train them… You have recently assured me that the first difficulty, viz: the absence of vocations has disappeared, since among the girls under your charge there are a few who have developed a decided religious vocation…

…I would ask you to foster the vocation among your girls, training them little by little to practice the rules and acquire the virtues proper to the Religious state. Keep the Religious ideals before their eyes and also the possibility of its realisation with the assistance of the Holy Ghost…

The advent of the Native Sisterhood will open a new era for the Christian women in Nigeria. In addition to the practice of the Christian Virtues, the heroic practice of the three vows by Nigerian girls will be the most excellent sermon ever preached to the women of Nigeria, besides being a perennial source of exceptional grace of conversion… 
(Shanahan to Walker 30th April 1926).

By June 1926, a group of Aspirants was formed by Mother Mary Charles Magdalen. The Holy Father, Pius XI, blessed it and Bishop Joseph Shanahan commissioned her to take charge of the ‘new foundation’ of the Native Sisterhood.

…Work towards the realisation of the Native Sisterhood. It has the blessing of the Holy Father and therefore the blessing of God. Since God wills it there can be no doubt of its success. God bless you and may His Blessings extend to your spiritual daughters… 
(Letter of Bishop Joseph Shanahan to Mother Mary Charles Magdalen Walker, June 1926).

On March 4th 1929, writing to her Superior General, Mother Mary Charles Magdalen declared:

I follow our Rule in every detail without difficulty. Five girls make all the spiritual duties with me. At 5.20 each morning we are in the little Oratory. They are only waiting for the opportunity to enter a real Novitiate and several other young girls have the same desire.

On 15th January 1931, four of those Aspirants received the Postulant Hood and a simple Rule of life as Foundation Members of the Congregation of the Handmaids of the Holy Child Jesus, in the Convent Chapel, Anua, after a five-day retreat given by Mother Mary Charles Magdalen Walker. These were: Lucy Williams, Kathleen Bassey, Agnes Ugoaru and Christiana Waturuocha.

She instilled in them a Spirituality rooted in Divine Providence in imitation of the abandonment to God’s will shown by Mary at the Annunciation. She gave them an all-embracing apostolate.

The Native Nuns will work in elementary schools, they will visit the poor and the sick, work in institutions and hospitals and in fact do just the work of the Congregation of the Sisters of Charity 
(Mother Mary Charles Walker to Mother Mary De Ricci, Superior General – 22nd October, 1932)

Training in the apostolate went hand in hand with the spiritual formation and since the opportunity for real Novitiate continued to be deferred by Bishop Charles Heerey who had succeeded Bishop Joseph Shanahan in 1931, the Postulants, who were already mature and with educational qualifications, were engaged in teaching, catechising, care of the women and girls, the poor, twins and orphans and medical works while still receiving their religious formation from Mother Mary Charles Magdalen. In a letter dated 2nd July, 1933, to Mother de Ricci, Mother Mary Charles Magdalen Walker gives an idea of the magnitude of the work:

The work has grown most wonderfully, thank God… We have six boarding and day Schools, a hospital and dispensary.

In 1934, forced by circumstances beyond her control but with perfect resignation to the will of God, and so that the work of God for souls might not suffer any harm, she left Nigeria for England after entrusting her spiritual Daughters and work to the care of the Holy Child Sisters who had come out in 1930 to assist her.

MISSIONARY WORK IN OTHER AFRICAN COUNTRY

Back in England Sister Mary Charles Magdalen Walker lived an obscure life of humble service until 1956, when she was sent back on a mission to Africa, by her new Superior General, Mother Teresa Anthony. She went this time, to Chikuni, Zambia, to train members of a Native Congregation- Handmaids of the Blessed Virgin Mary- founded a few years earlier. There she also undertook the production of Altar bread, which she cherished greatly because of its link with the Eucharist.

DEATH

On 27th February, 1966, Sister Mary Charles Magdalen Walker, a woman of an indomitable spirit, prayer, faith, vision, obedience, forbearance, patient endurance of suffering, a friend of the poor and the underprivileged, a unique missionary and Founder, died (at the age of 86 years) and was buried in the Chikuni Mission Cemetery, Zambia. Most Rev. Dr James Corboy S.J., Bishop of Monze, Zambia performed the last rites.

On 2nd October, 1981, after Church and Civil protocols, her Spiritual Daughters – the Handmaids of the Holy Child Jesus, exhumed her remains and reburied them on the 16th of October, 1981, in their Mother House in Calabar, Nigeria, after a Pontifical High Mass celebrated by His Lordship, Most Rev. Dr. B. D Usanga, Bishop of Calabar, Nigeria.