Mary Ward (1585-1645)

    The biography of Mary Ward, foundress of the Institute of the Blessed Virgin Mary, reveals the personality of an avant-garde woman, free and of extraordinary humility.

    Born in the hard times of the 16^th-century England, she devoted all her life to starting up an initiative in Europe that should outlive her and perpetuate her apostolic fervour and her clear and brave vision of the education of women in her time and for the future.

Mary Ward was the pioneer of the apostolic and educating action because:

	She broke with the current models of her time by leading together with her followers a way of life as "contemplative women in action", carrying out their duties without enclosure.
	She was the first to send her nuns away from their homeland.
	She was the first to foresee the chances o women in every apostolic field. She foresaw the apostolate of the Christian education.
	She was open to all the apostolic works of her time.

    As an educator, Mary tried to adapt the religious life to the needs of education. Her idea was the education for all social classes adapted to the needs of the person and the place, integrating a spiritual, intellectual, physical and psychological education in order to prepare the person as a whole.