Readings:
Isaiah 58:1-12
Psalm 103:1-6
Romans 16:1-2, 25-27
Matthew 14:13-21Preface of a Saint 1
PRAYER (contemporary
language):
Merciful God, who endowed Adeline and her companions with faith and courage, wisdom and humility, and called them to serve you as deaconesses, ministering to the sick, the oppressed, and the poor: By your grace, grant that we, following their example, may live to serve you as they did, revealing your steadfast love to the world, through our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
This commemoration was adopted for trial use at General Convention 2024.
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ADELINE BLANCHARD TYLER AND HER COMPANIONS
Adeline Blanchard Tyler (1805-1875) was the first Episcopal deaconess. Along with Caroline (Carrie) Elizabeth Guild (1827-1880), Eveline Black (1825-1875), and Catherine Minard (1837-1917), she was
admitted to the office of deaconess on the 4th of November 1856. They provided nursing care, religious and practical education, material support, and advocacy at the newly established St. Andrew's Infirmary in Baltimore. They cared for men, women, and children, Black and white, from near and far, and would become known as the United Deaconesses of Maryland.
The need for experienced nurses and hospital superintendents during the Civil War led Adeline to the Camden Street Hospital in Baltimore, where she ministered to both Union and Confederate soldiers with an evenhandedness that sparked accusations by some of being "a Rebel sympathizer." Shortly thereafter, at the request of Dorothea Dix, she was placed in charge of the military hospital in Chester, Pennsylvania, where her colleagues included volunteer nurses from Maine and Massachusetts. They often had 1,000 men under their care. By early 1863 Adeline was in charge of the military hospital at the former Naval Academy in Annapolis, again with members of the nursing cohort who had served at Chester. She died on January 9, 1875.