Sister Xavier, historian, writer, teacher and archivist

Sister Mary Xavier Holworthy, IWBS is widely known as the historian of the Diocese of Corpus Christi. She was not only a historian but was a legend in her own right.

She was legendary—both in the convent and in the diocese. Her sisters at the Incarnate Word Convent all knew she was vocally adamant in her dislike of the hymn “Priestly People.” But they also knew Sister Xavier was a pioneer religious and a profound person of prayer. 

She and the diocese “grew up” together.  She entered the Incarnate Word community in 1908 and just four years later, in 1912, the Vicariate of Brownsville was elevated to the Diocese of Corpus Christi.  

Sister Xavier did not begin life as a Catholic. She was born in 1890 in Denver, Colorado and the family came to Corpus Christi at the turn of the century where her father, the Rev. A. J. Holworthy, was assigned as rector of the Episcopal Church of the Good Shepherd. 

Not a great believer in public schools, her father sent her to school at Incarnate Word Academy. After an initial resistance, the young girl said she was “thrown to my knees” during the Benediction service. She recalled years later “grace was poured into my soul” and she made up her mind to become a Catholic. Her father forbade such a notion, but Father Claude Jaillet baptized her on Dec. 6, 1903.

At the age of 18, her father finally consented to her entering the Incarnate Word convent but her mother refused. She made her final vows at the end of 1910.

In 1913, Sister Xavier, requested and received a dispensation to leave the silence of the cloister during the summer to attend school for teacher training.  Sister earned a B.A. degree at Incarnate Word College in San Antonio in 1929 and her M.A. also in San Antonio at St. Mary’s University in 1939. 

Her graduate thesis was on the history of the Diocese of Corpus Christi.  The thesis was an outgrowth of her research on the history of the Corpus Christi Cathedral parish that was later published under the title, A Century of Sacrifice—A History of the Cathedral Parish 1853-1953. 

She went on to write much of the original material on which the Nueces County Historical Society based its handbook. She served as president of the Society as well as a director of the Nueces County Historical Survey Committee. 

Sister Xavier authored several books; the most notable was the biography of Father Claude Jaillet, whom she knew personally. The book, Father Jaillet, Saddlebag Priest of the Nueces, was published in 1948 and the Duval County Historical Society reprinted it in 1996 with permission of the Sisters of the Incarnate Word and Blessed Sacrament. The book is often given to diocesan seminarians to provide them with a sense of the early years of the Church in south Texas.

As a teacher at Incarnate Word Academy, Sister Xavier’s expertise was business or secretarial training, as it was called then. After they graduated, her students were much in demand by the businessmen of the city.  However, business was not her only accomplishment; she also organized the first orchestra, the drama and music clubs after she went to the high school in 1924. Later she set up and organized the high school library during the 1938-1939 school year. 

Sister Xavier retired from teaching in 1968 and became the first diocesan archivist. At 82, she still worked an eight-hour day in the archives office at the Corpus Christi Cathedral. 

“If it were not for Sister Xavier, we would be in a very bad state,” said Geraldine McGloin, a local historian and Corpus Christi Cathedral parishioner, concerning Sister Xavier’s impact on the efforts of recording the diocese’s history.

Sister Xavier died on April 28, 1974 in Corpus Christi.  Her life and work not only helped lay the foundation for the Church in South Texas, it also recorded for future generations the legacy of those beginnings.