Retracing the Ritarian Roots: Talangpaz Sisters and Augustinian Recollects of San Sebastian Church

Abstract

This historical account retraces the roots of Saint Rita College that commenced its foundation totally unheralded in 1907. In the horizon, we find the foundresses of the Congregation of the Augustinian Recollect Sisters: Mother Dionisia de Santa María, Mother Cecilia Rosa de Jesús and the Augustinian Recollects of the San Sebastian Church in Manila.  The two foundresses were blood sisters who left their hometown in 1719 and traveled to San Sebastian de Calumpang in Manila where the cherished icon of Our Lady of Mount Carmel. They found a small house in Bilibid Viejo where they lived a life of seclusion, contemplation, and mortification.  Their virtue and piety attracted the Augustinian Recollects of San Sebastian Convent.  Not long after the Beaterio de San Sebastian was founded. It was 16 July 1725 when they lived as terciarias and followed the Rule of Saint Augustine under the protection of the Recollect religious of San Sebastian Convent. In 1907, the Recollect Fathers urged the sisters of the Beaterio to open a school for girls, after defraying the construction of the new edifice. And the Beaterio came in into being in 1907 Saint Rita Academy, later Colegio de Santa Rita, or Saint Rita College.