Showered with Blessings

Recently, I participated in the wondrous Jubilee celebration of 28 of our Sister Jubilarians. Five of the sisters were celebrating eighty years of religious life!  Yes, eighty years! How proud they were! How proud we were! Saint Joseph Villa’s chapel rocked with songs of praise and thanksgiving!  

The event touched me deeply. How graced I am to be a member of this wonderful Congregation of women who strive to live their lives witnessing to the great love of God!

Sixty-four years of my life have been lived as a Sister of Saint Joseph. These years spent in educational, parish, social and spirituality work, along with congregational administration, have taken me not only to the inner city and suburbs of my native Philadelphia but also to the gentle beauty of North Carolina, the political scene of Washington, DC, the stretching plains of Kansas, the stately mountains and coal fields of Appalachia and the hustling seaport of Bayonne, NJ. In addition, I have experienced brief, meaningful visits to the poverty of Guatemala and the Dominican Republic. In these sites I have lived and learned, have ministered to and been ministered to by God’s people of all ages, races and creeds. What graced gifted years!  What gratitude sings in my being!

In the book, Simple Ways, Gunilla Norris writes:

What a joyous task lies before us each day.

                                                     Showered with blessings,

                                                              it will take our

entire lifetime to learn to be nothing but a

LIVING THANKFULNESS.

These words strike an invitational note within me. I have indeed been showered with blessings!  May I continue to learn as I move into each day to be a “Living Thankfulness.” What a joyous task!   

Sister Anna Louis Schuck SSJ

Sister Anna Louise now lives at Nazareth House in Erdenheim, PA.  She serves as a Spiritual Director and in the Ministry of Presence.