Maria Moes

Sometimes a loss leads to a greater gain, or a more important gain, but there might be suffering in between the loss and the gain.  Maria Catherine Moes is an example.  She was a 19th century immigrant.  She founded a new religious order of nuns in Joliet, IL area and opened a school for girls.  This was the frontier and Chicagoans today might say Joliet is still the frontier!  Anyhow, she wants to expand the school, but her bishop says no.  He then orders her to be expelled from the order she founded.  Off she goes to Minnesota.  A bishop there welcomes her and her companions from her old order.  She founds yet another order of sisters.  After a terribly destructive tornado in Rochester in 1883 she joins with a doctor there to assist the injured.  Together they opened St. Mary’s Hospital in 1889.  The doctor’s name?  William Mayo.  Heard of the Mayo Clinic?  So when you get kicked around by authority, rejected, fired, it may not be the end for you.  Grace is everywhere.