Mo. Mary Teresa Tallon, founder of the Parish Visitors of Mary Immaculate (P.V.M.I.). Photo: Before Mother Maria Catherine Iannotti entered the Parish Visitors of Mary Immaculate as a Catholic religious sister, she was somewhat frightened by how serious their foundress, Mother Mary Teresa Tallon, looked in photos. Her perspective changed, however, when another sister encouraged her to keep Mother Tallon’s photo in her room and pray for her intercession every day.
“I started to notice in the picture that she wasn’t so severe,” Mother Maria Catherine recalled. “She had this little … gleam in her eyes and a smile on her face – and I started to want to know her more deeply.”
Their relationship only grew from there. Today, Mother Maria Catherine not only serves as general superior of the Parish Visitors, Mother Tallon’s contemplative-missionary congregation of religious sisters, but also as vice postulator of Mother Tallon’s cause for sainthood.
Tallon
Pope Leo XIV named Mother Tallon venerable on June 18.
“She was a woman with one idea,” Mother Maria Catherine told OSV News in April. “And her one idea was to love God and to make him greatly loved.”
Born in New York in 1867, Mother Tallon was the seventh of eight children born to Irish immigrants. Although her mother initially tried to discourage her from religious life, Mother Tallon entered the Sisters of the Holy Cross in South Bend, Indiana, at age 19. She stayed with the sisters for 33 years and taught in Catholic schools.
In 1920, she founded a new congregation in New York City – the Parish Visitors – to teach the faith and, in particular, reach lapsed and uninstructed Catholics. While Mother Tallon died in 1954, her sisters continue to evangelise and catechise in the United States, where they have convents in New York, Pennsylvania and Ohio, as well as in Nigeria and the Philippines.
In 2013, the Church declared her a ‘Servant of God,’ meaning that her life and virtues were being investigated for a cause for her canonisation.
The Holy See’s declaration that she is ‘venerable’ recognises her heroic virtues. Miracles verified as occurring through her intercession would be required for beatification and canonisation.
Mother Tallon wanted every person she encountered to know that he or she is called to be a saint, Mother Maria Catherine said.
Her message of holiness in life is so important to bring to our people, especially our young people”
“She understood the call of baptism — for every baptised Catholic to be a saint,” she said. “Every single person she met, no matter what religion they were, she would talk to them about God and about the need to be saints.”
Her students were no exception. Mother Tallon taught her pupils to grow in holiness.
“In today’s world, in today’s Catholic world, it’s so important — her message of holiness in life is so important to bring to our people, especially our young people,” Mother Maria Catherine said.
Dedication
Today, Mother Tallon’s sisters continue to live out her mission as contemplative missionaries. They embrace a contemplative prayer life as well as their missionary visitation to parish families and religious instruction. They do door-to-door evangelisation and, more recently, have begun to train lay people in door-to-door evangelisation.
They dedicate their lives to God just as Mother Tallon did. As Mother Maria Catherine put it, “She loved him and she wanted to make him loved. Simple.”
Katie Yoder writes for OSV News.