Director of Mother Lange Guild https://www.oblatesisters.com/sr-magdala Sister Magdala Marie Gilbert 91, director, Mother Mary Lange Guild Sister Magdala Marie Gilbert, 91, joined the Oblate Sisters of Providence, an order of Black nuns founded by Mother Mary Lange, 73 years ago. (Lloyd Fox/Baltimore Sun) Mother Mary Lange, the nun who established the first Catholic school for African American girls in America and the first successful religious order for Black Catholic sisters in the world, died 140 years ago this year, but to Sister Magdala Marie Gilbert, she could not be more of a living force. Gilbert, 91, joined Lange’s order, the Oblate Sisters of Providence, 73 years ago and has upheld its vows of poverty and charity ever since. She has worked as a teacher, librarian and director of religious education. But her main occupation today is promoting the cause of sainthood for Lange, the Cuba-born sister who moved to the slave state of Maryland in 1813 and turned her religious faith into revolutionary doings. Gilbert has been director of the Mother Mary Lange Guild, an organization based at the order’s Catonsville mother house, for 13 years, and it has gone national and international under her leadership. Now with 17 board members and chapters across the country, the Guild has developed a network of donors and supporters in places as far afield as Poland, Uganda, India and Brazil. Gilbert can be seen each day making her way to her office above the campus gym, where she knocks out as many as 40 letters — then sometimes has...