CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas — This year marks a very special anniversary for one of the oldest schools in the Coastal Bend. The sisters of the Incarnate Word and Blessed Sacrament are celebrating their sesquicentennial with 150 years of helping educate South Texas students and sharing the word of God.
It's said that the organization is older than the Corpus Christi Catholic Diocese, which was established in 1912.
"This was Claude Dubuis, he was the second bishop of Galveston and he was the one who came over to France and requested that our sisters come to Corpus Christi and Brownsville," Sister Brenda Thompson said.
Sister Thompson is the director of heritage at the Incarnate Word convent. It's her job to digitize the stories in an effort to preserve their history.
The writings are stored in binders, each page and photo protected in an acid-free sheet, allowing visitors to flip through to learn more about the origin of the organization.
Sister Annette Wagner currently serves as superior general and said it was just after the French Revolution when the Bishop of Texas, Claude Dubuis, went to France looking for a group of sisters that could start schools in Texas.
Since the sisters were cloistered at the time, they couldn't leave. During the conversation, the Bishop mentioned he would soon be meeting with the Pope.
After first arriving in Brownsville in 1853, the sisters set up a school and then made their way to Victoria and in 1871 finally to Corpus Christi.
Over the years, graduates of Incarnate Word Academy have gone to prominent careers in public service, health care and education.
Although the sisters of IWA started out in the classrooms, much of their work is focused on helping in hospitals and working in adult education.
Over the years, many things have changed, from the way they teach to how they dress. It was just 50 years ago when the Catholic Church decided that the traditional habit could be changed out for something less customary.
The sisters of the IWA have since spread out across the world, including places like South America, Africa and Europe, but although times have changed, their overall mission remains the same.
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