Rogers attended Smith College and was inspired in 1904 by graduating Protestant students preparing to leave for missionary work in China.

[4] Her paternal grandfather Patrick Henry, emigrated from Ireland to Canada before crossing the border into the United States where he settled in Boston, Massachusetts.

At the time Henry made the move to the United States, Irish immigrants were a focus of public persecution.

They evaded a lot of the persecution from traditional Protestant Americans by keeping their religious practices to a minimum outside the home.

They did these out of duty to their religion, but most of the Catholic principles that are taught and implemented by constant unrestricted immersion in church life came from time at home.

In June of Rogers junior year she felt so strongly moved by the mission- sending of five Protestant classmates she decided she wanted to reconnect with the church.

[5] Rogers got help and guidance for the club from Father James A. Walsh who at the time was director of the Boston office of the Society for the Propagation of the Faith.

She worked translating documents that came from French missioners to English, and made basic edits to the magazine drafts.

In order to commit more fully to the magazine, Rogers dropped out of the Master's program at Smith College and took a job teaching in Boston Public schools.

[4] In 1908 Pope Pius X announced that the Catholic Church could support itself as America was no longer considered mission territory.

[4] Rogers was chosen by Father Walsh in 1912 to take lead of the women that had come forward to help in his foreign mission society.

[5] Recognizing that Rogers would need help to establish the group, the Dominican Sisters of Sinsinawa, Wisconsin offered guidance.

In February 1920, the Archbishop of New York, Patrick Joseph Hayes, relayed the news that the group of now 35 women was a church approved Diocletian congregation.

She would use the term cultivate as a way to explain what she felt that Maryknolls should aim to do, stating that "In our active religious life we don’t have time for sustained and long prayer.

Toward the end of her life Mother Mary Joseph took extra care in making time to mentor the new members of the Maryknoll Sisters.