The Challenge of Seeing God in the Ordinary

Each day, as the Co-director of Faith and Family Life Formation for the Diocese of Camden, I often find myself running from one activity to another, getting caught up in the details of planning, collecting information, distributing information to parishes, and having very little direct contact ministering to God’s people. Even after five years, this seems so difficult not participating in parish life. Getting so caught up in the everyday responsibilities I often miss the various subtle ways God walks with me during the day.

Last week there was a moment of grace as we gathered with our three Echo Apprentices from Notre Dame University. These three young women spent the last two years ministering with a “veteran” DRE in a parish setting. We spent two days talking and praying about the experiences of these two years. God’s presence was very evident during our time together - in the quiet walks, watching the sunrise, sharing meals and other experiences.

We have all returned to our places of ministry. The three apprentices will be leaving us soon, to go back and graduate from Notre Dame and then to begin their call to ministry in the Church.  As for myself, as I return to the “ordinary” tasks of diocesan ministry, I am more deeply challenged to pay attention, to be aware. God is always walking with me, generously giving me the graces I need to minister in God’s church. The challenge for me is to continue to recognize God’s presence in the very ordinary tasks of ministry.

Kathy Burton SSJ

Sister Kathy Burton is presently serving as the Co-Director of Faith and Family Life in the Office of Lifelong Faith Formation for the Diocese of Camden.

Heart to Heart

What captures my heart as I reflect on the joy of vocation is a moment in my history when I was feeling desperately unsatisfied with my life as a Sister of Saint Joseph. I shared this feeling with our President Sister Dorothea “Dottie” Newell who suggested that I make a month long renewal with the U.S. Federation of Sisters of Saint Joseph. It was the last thing I would have thought for myself at the time. However, during that month of retreat, I was challenged to dream about how I saw myself in 25 years. I dreamt I would be living a life of ministry in social justice. The world around me was filled with horror such as the death of Archbishop Oscar Romero, the women and priests in El Salvador, the racist laws in South Africa and the poverty in our own country.

During that month, a team of elders and a team of peers gave us input on our first Sisters in France and how the only thing they had in common was the “sharing of the heart.” The early sisters didn’t dress alike, eat together nor pray together as a rule. What they had in common was the practice we now refer to as “sharing the state of the heart.” We practiced sharing the state of our hearts twice a day for that month. The joy of having that experience has carried me beyond that period of dissatisfaction to the present time of deep and meaningful appreciation for my life as a Sister of Saint Joseph. For the last 35 years, I have been ministering full time in Social Justice Ministry. My dream came true! God revealed to me at the core of my being what I needed to learn that sharing the state of my heart was the only thing that as a Sister of Saint Joseph I held in common with all other Sisters of Saint Joseph. Heart-to-heart with God and heart-to-heart with others turns out to be the joy of vocation for me.

Mary Elizabeth Clark, SSJ

Sister Mary Elizabeth currently serves as the Director for The SSJ Earth Center, a sponsored work of the Sisters of Saint Joseph.

Never Less Than I Imagined

"To the extent of my power, I wish from now on to become conscious of what the world loves, pursues, suffers. I want to be the first to seek, to sympathize, to toil: the first in self-fulfillment, the first in self-denial - I would be more widely human and more nobly of Earth than any of the world's servants." - Teilhard de Chardin SJ 

Joe M, one of students at Lancaster Catholic, loved to talk about anything except class work. One day he started, "You could have been a doctor, you could have been a lawyer, you could have been a politician! Isn't being a nun boring?" (Tells you what he thought of my English class!) My honest answer then and now is, "My life has been a lot of things, but boring isn't one of them."

Rather, my life is more like the title of Raissa Maritain's memoir, We Have Been Friends Together and Adventures in Grace. To be a Sister of Saint Joseph is to experience friendship with God and others, adventure with God and others. My adventures don't amount to much geographically, but traversing the terrains of the heart, my own heart and the hearts of others is a journey beyond compare.

For me, there is nothing more precious than being trusted with part of another's life-story, another's heart-journey. As "Sister" I have prayed to be worthy of the trust people place in me as they share what they can't say in most places: family heartache, ups and downs of first love, addictions and recovery, faith crises, betrayals, histories of abuse, not being able to have children, "coming out" to family, trying to figure out how to respond to a beloved child's "coming out," living with HIV, job loss, depression, bulimia, abortion, all kinds of grief and shame...and the glorious joy as someone finds his/her way through pain to new life.

What would I say of SSJ life, of the God I have come to know through prayer, ministry and community? Never less than I imagined and always more than I bargained for!...more beautiful, more real, tenacious, tough, tender.

With the poet Mary Oliver -
"I tell you this
to break your heart,
by which I mean only
that it break open and never close again
to the rest of the world."
New and Selected Poems, Vol. 2 

Rita Woehlcke SSJ

Rita: 50 years in a nutshell: Rita Woehlcke SSJ is presently the Director of the SSJ Associates in Mission. She has taught in elementary and high school. She has worked with pregnant and parenting teens, homeless, pregnant, addicted women, court adjudicated teens, gay and lesbian Catholics and their families, and infertile couples. Her recent work was in spiritual direction, retreats and programs for personal and ministerial growth. As a Sister of Saint Joseph, she seeks to live her Congregation's mission "that all may be one" by inviting people to become more deeply aware that we live and love together, held in the unbound hospitality of God's broken-open and poured-out heart. This heart is manifest not only in Jesus, but also in the glorious cosmos that reflects and embodies God's dream and design: "a unity that is not uniformity and a diversity that is not division." (Eric Doyle, OFM)

Alleluia

 

 "Whenever you have a difficult challenge, put God in the situation." This is advice I was given by my confessor. In our ministry with senior citizens at Saint Joseph and Cecilian Villages, the challenges come unexpectedly around every corner. They may come in an interview that starts with practical questions and soon enters into an applicant's painful life journey. God comes in compassion and consolation. The challenge may come with the emergency call that will change a resident's quality of life. God enters with healing and hope. It may shoot out of a broken sprinkler. God comes with the gift of plumbers and painters and the gift of restoration. 

God enters in dreams realized — physical ones, such as new computers and spiritual ones, such as insights offered on a senior prayer day. God inspires generosity and gratitude. In tears of loss and smiles of welcome, false alarms and embarrassed relief, I find these very earthy real people are the revelation of God/Christ. So I pause each day to recollect, to realize that God is in each challenge even when I am unaware. Alleluia!

 Sister Evelyn Danks SSJ

  

I entered the Sisters of Saint Joseph in 1964 after graduation from Little Flower High School. We were considered the beginning of the Baby Boomers. Wherever we went there were a lot of us. Our willingness to try anything and to keep trying earned us the title "Uncrushables." While my main apostolic work was education, so many opportunities presented themselves in pastoral work, community interaction especially in Hispanic ministry. Surprised by the Spirit is not just a title for a book it is our autobiography. I now serve as Occupancy Manager in Saint Joseph Village and Cecilian Village in McSherrystown, PA. Both are sponsored works of the Sisters of Saint Joseph and federally subsidized housing communities for senior citizens. More information is available at: http://saintjosephvillage.org/index.html and http://cecilianvillage.org/index.html.

The Road Less Traveled

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I,
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference. (The Road Not Taken, Robert Frost)

I was in sixth grade when I was first introduced to this poem, and it resounded immediately within me. Of course at 11 or 12 years of age, I did not know why. But as time has gone on, and now after 32 years as a Sister of Saint Joseph, the poem continues to describe my life. 

I had a major “Saint Paul spiritual conversion” experience in my late 20’s. That awakening to Christ and his love changed the path on which I was traveling. As I grew in my relationship with Christ and the Church, my overwhelming desire was to share God’s love and mercy with others. A few years after that conversion, I felt the call to live my deepening relationship with Christ through a vowed life. I was 32. Choosing “that road” has certainly made all the difference!

As a Pastoral Associate in a large Catholic parish, I am able to share the love and mercy of Christ every day, in varied ways. I minister to grieving families who have lost a loved one, I meet with couples preparing for the Sacrament of Marriage, facilitate RCIA sessions, or my favorite… mentoring others as they seek to deepen their life of prayer. Recently, in leading a group of adults in a guided meditation, at the conclusion, one of the women excitedly said, and with great surprise, “I met Jesus on the road – he was really there with me – I saw him, I saw the road we were walking on, we were talking and I was a little girl!” She met the risen Christ on her Emmaus road, and her joy and wonder I will not soon forget.    

Helping others grow in their knowledge of God and the Catholic faith or supporting them as they grow in the spiritual life - it is a wonderful, blest and exciting journey. 

I love my life as a Sister of Saint Joseph! I chose the road less traveled by and that has certainly made all the difference…for me and for others.  

Sister Kathleen Rooney SSJ

Sister Kathleen is the author of the book: Sisters: An Inside Look. Published by St. Mary’s Press.

Convent Life

When I was a lay teacher at Blessed Sacrament, Margate, New Jersey, a child brought me a Novena prayer. For nine weeks I went to church, lit a candle, and prayed. I asked God to tell me what God had planned for my life (hoping to find my Prince Charming). On the ninth Tuesday I knelt down to find a copy of the book Convent Life. Needless to say I had a good laugh. God and I often share jokes only this time God wasn’t joking. I agreed to try “Convent Life” for a year and here I am 43 years later.

During these 43 years I have met God in so many ways, in the quiet of the morning, in the beauty of creation, in music and even in my Harry Potter books.  Most profoundly, I have found God in others. I am an observer, a quiet watcher who soaks in what I see and hear. I see God in the children I meet daily. I see God in their hopes and dreams, their ability to work with one another to solve problems. I see God in their smiles, their eyes, and even in their tears. I see God in their hopes and their giftedness that will enable them to build a better world. I see God in the people of our streets - broken and wounded but willing to share their hopes that tomorrow will be better. I see God in the many people with whom I minister, people willing to go the extra mile because they believe in the mission of Jesus.

But most importantly for me, I see God day in and day out in the Sisters with whom I live and serve. I watch as they quietly make 600 needlepoint crosses for the children to wear during Lent, prepare dinners not only for us but for others so they can have a good meal, drive hours to spend their day off with immigrants in detention, tirelessly welcome all people making them feel important, valued respected, spending hours finding ways to serve better the people while working in full time ministries and so much more. I watch as we share our lives, our families, our hopes, our worries, our laughter and our tears, as we share our God. 

What I find even more amazing is that when I gather with other Sisters of Saint Joseph, the same is true. I am with women who go the extra mile, working to make the world a better place, dreaming dreams and asking, why not. In the sharing of our ministries, our dreams, and our laughter, I find God. This is where my heart belongs. So, 43 years later, I truly know that God’s dream for me was to be one with all as a Sister of Saint Joseph as we live and work so that all people may be united with God and one another.

Sister Jane Field SSJ

I was born in New York. I have a sister and three brothers. I lived in several different states. I attended public school until 10^th grade when I went to a private Catholic girls school for a year. Sister Carmella asked me if I wanted to be baptized and so I got baptized. I graduated from Ocean City High School and after a couple of college years I became a teacher at Blessed Sacrament School in Margate, New Jersey. I entered the Sisters of Saint Joseph in 1972 and have been ministering in schools in the Archdiocese of Philadelphia ever since.

A New Creation

Ever since I left Pennsylvania and moved to Alabama, Genesis 12: 1 – 2 has made the journey with me. “Leave your country and your family and go to the land that I will show you. I will make of you a new creation.”  Sometimes what I was leaving was a real country – or at least a specific part of the United States (i.e., leaving Pennsylvania; leaving Alabama). At other times, it was leaving a familiar way of being a speech pathologist. This happened when I made the transition to full-time work in the public school system. It happened again when I left the familiar field of speech therapy and entered a new world as a classroom teacher. I have been at my present ministry for 10 years, but the little Catholic school will be closing in June, so it is time for my next change. 

Each time a serious transition like this pops up in my life, I find myself going back to that call from Genesis. It has happened to me so many times that it is now like an old friend – enticing me to say, “Yes,” to this journey to a new land (new ministry) and “Yes,” to becoming yet again another new creation. Along with the call from Genesis, I am also praying with a sentence from the prayer for the 200^th anniversary of the birth of Mother Saint John Fournier – “Mold me like clay in the hands of a potter, to a shape as yet unimagined and a future as yet undefined.”  

The closing of the school brings a great sadness on one hand, but the other hand, holds the excitement and challenge of becoming something new. What will this look like? Stay tuned.  

Sister Donna Loeper SSJ

 

Sister Donna entered the Sisters of Saint Joseph in 1980 at the age of 27. She worked as a speech-language pathologist in a variety of locations and with a wide variety of people. In 2005 she started her ministry as a Pre-K teacher in a little Catholic school in Savannah, GA.