Constitutions

In May 1814, Archbishop Murray had been present in Rome for the restoration by the Pope of the Society of Jesus after forty years' suppression. Among the Irish Jesuits present was Fr Robert St Leger who was later to become Mary's friend and spiritual guide. Realising she needed help in framing the new Constitutions, she turned to Father St Leger, now back in Dublin and the rector of the newly-established St Stanislaus' Jesuit College in Dublin.

While at York, the Loreto sisters had permitted Mary Aikenhead to make a copy of their Ignatian-based Rule and Constitutions and related books and papers which she had become convinced were the most suitable as the basis of the new congregation. On examining the York Rule, Father St Leger found some deficiencies, so he gave Mary Aikenhead a correct copy of the Jesuit Rules of the Summary, the Common and the Official Rules, and the General Examen that prefaces the Jesuit Constitution.

He began work on the Constitutions, keeping closely to those of St Ignatius for the first nine chapters. In three years he completed a copy in Latin (which he sent to Rome in 1824) and a copy in English that Archbishop Murray approved and the sisters put into practice from that time.