January 12, 2024

UPDATED: Holyoke’s Marian Center health care unit to close at end of 2024

REGIONAL
By Rebecca Drake

SPRINGFIELD – Staff at the Marian Center’s health care unit were informed late Wednesday Jan. 10 that the unit will be closing at the end of this year.

Located at 1365 Northampton St., Holyoke, the Marian Center was established more than 60 years ago as a retreat center run the Daughters of the Heart of Mary (DHM), a worldwide congregation of women religious. In recent years, it also has served as the central office of the congregation’s U.S. province.

Founded in France in 1791 by Jesuit Father Pierre Joseph de Cloriviere, and Marie Adelaide de Cice, the Society of the Daughters of the Heart of Mary has sisters on five continents and in 31 countries. The congregation was formed to live discreetly and without wearing habits or living in a cloister and are not formally identified by the title “Sister.”

Presently, there are two retired diocesan priests and six other individuals, including a number of women religious from several local congregations, living in the Marian Center’s health care unit.

In 2013, the congregation opened the handicapped-accessible DeCicé Hall at the Marian Center, which accommodates up to 60 people for retreats, seminars, workshops and other small group events.

Anita Baird (right foreground), U.S. provincial for the Daughter of the Heart of Mary, is pictured during a 2013 Mass marking the opening of DeCice Hall at the Marian Center in Holyoke. (Catholic Communications file photo)

Anita Baird, the DHM U.S. provincial, told iObserve the decision to close the health facility was not made lightly and was made in consultation with the congregation’s leadership in Paris. She cited the declining number of professed sisters and rising costs of running a health care unit as factors.

“It’s what’s happening with religious congregations all over,” she said. “We get smaller in numbers and we need to provide for our older sisters to ensure that they are cared for.”

“We know it’s not just jobs, it’s people’s lives,” Baird said about the decision to close the unit. “And our employees are part of our family. So, we’re very close and we care very much about them.

“It’s not just closing a business,” she said, “but it’s changing how we are in relationship and presence and being.”

“We’re not closing tomorrow,” she emphasized. “A lot will depend on how the communities that are here are able to place their people. We want them to have sufficient time to find the best place for the sisters and two priests who live with us.”

Asked about the legacy of the Marian Center health care ministry and the Daughters of the Heart of Mary that will remain in Holyoke in the future, Baird said, “It’s always been a place of hospitality and welcome, a presence of peace within the area.

“We hope our legacy will be that those whose lives we’ve touched in some small way, those known and unknown to us, will have experienced the compassionate, tender-hearted love of God through our presence and ministry.”