Word has come down in the news media that Sancta Maria in Ripa has been put on the market for sale by the School Sisters of Notre Dame in Lemay. I’ve looked at the majestic buildings twice, first in October of 2008, and then in December of 2020. The high school buildings are not for sale and it will continue uninterrupted.

I visited the cemetery shortly after the announcement, which is to the south of the main buildings.

The abbesses(?) are buried around the crucifixion sculpture, while there is a special memorial shown below, for sisters who donated their bodies to science, of which there are many. There are still many new burials in the cemetery.

The name Sancta Maria in Ripa is interesting, as it means “Saint Mary on the Riverbank,” meaning the Mississippi River, of course. Perhaps it would be more accurate for it to be said “in Rupe,” on the bluff or cliff, as it sits high on the hill or bluffs above the river. But I digress, the name Ripa perhaps was chosen out of a religious member’s memory of the Ripa in Rome, which is the stretch of the Tiber below the center of the city where boats had docked for a couple of millennia, and where there is a wonderful church, San Francesco a Ripa,

As can be imagined, the church is sacred to the Franciscans, who operate a monastery nearby. While the church is close to 700 hundred years old, it was jazzed up in the Seventh Century.

Of particular note is the chapel of the Blessed Ludovica Albertoni, with a marble sculpture by the great Gianlorenzo Bernini with a painting by Giovanni Battista Gaulli and I would imagine some stucco work by Antonio Raggi. It’s off the beaten path and a well kept secret.