Serving the “Dear Neighbor” in the Last Frontier

As the Diocesan Director of Religious Education in the missionary diocese of Fairbanks, Alaska, I encounter the Lord in my ministry in many ways. The place I most experience God is with the native people in our village missions. Recently, I had the joy and the blessing of assisting the parents in the preparation of their children for the Sacraments of Reconciliation and First Eucharist. It was a wonderful day on Sunday when five of the children received their First Communion and a baby was baptized. I went to another village mission for Mother’s Day weekend for First Communion as well.

I fly to the villages in small planes that land on airstrips outside the village. My ministry involves flying to 13 native village missions including Barrow on the Arctic Ocean and Little Diomede Island, 25 miles from Russia in the Bering Sea and driving to our nine parishes on the road system. I assist in preparing the people for the sacraments. I am, also, responsible for Catechist Formation, Adult Faith Formation and Religious Education.

There 46 parishes in the diocese, 36 are in native villages in the bush (access by plane only) and nine are on the “road system.” Fairbanks is the largest diocese, geographically, in the United States and the only all mission diocese. Because of the shortage of priests here (16 priests and one Bishop), the missions in the bush have Mass only every two to three months depending on the weather. Communion services are the norm in these villages. We also have only seven Sisters and two Brothers.

Sister Maggie Butler is the other Philly SSJ in our diocese. She is in Tok, which is on the road system about four hours from Fairbanks and 80 miles from the Canadian border.  

So although my ministry is challenging at times (for example: being snowed-in for several days in a village, being in one of our missions without running water, limited food options, difficult travel conditions with the temperature -30 or less), I feel I am making a difference in serving our “dear neighbor” with the remarkable, resilient, faith-filled missionaries and people of our diocese. To learn more about the Fairbanks Diocese go to www.dioceseoffairbanks.org

Sister Dorothy Giloley SSJ 

 

Sister Dorothy was born and raised in Philadelphia. She has ministered in elementary school, youth ministry, campus ministry, and religious education, as a pastoral associate and in adult faith formation. She served in the inner city in Philadelphia for 18 years, and in New Jersey, Maryland, and West Virginia. She has been serving in Alaska for the past 14 years

Lessons from My Students

In the musical The King and I, Anna becomes the teacher of the King’s many children. After getting to know them, she explains in song that “When you become a teacher, by your pupils you’ll be taught.” I have learned the wisdom of Anna’s words over and over in 35 years of teaching.

Early in my teaching career, I was assigned to first grade, and unexpectedly had 55 six-year-olds in what was supposed to be two classes with a master teacher and me. There was just me. One of the bible stories in the first-grade religion book was the story of Abraham and Isaac. This was, I thought, my first test. I told the story, and the children seemed to be hanging on my every word. Success!

The next day I asked, “Do you remember the name of the man who loved God so much that he was willing to give God his son, and then God said, “You don’t have to do that?” All the children raised their hands, eager to respond. I called on Justine, and this is what she said, “I remember, that was Lincoln.”  

I love that story, and I loved learning from Justine. I learned from her that I know what I’m saying, but I don’t necessarily know what you’re hearing. I learned that context is important, and that listening to my students is even more important.

Justine’s lesson helps me in working on a committee, in local community, in congregational meetings and in facilitating groups. I think of her when I realize that I’ve fallen into an “assumption trap,” assuming that I know about someone else and how s/he’ll respond.

I think of that lesson when I realize that my “issues” with another person arise because of the way I’m hearing what she’s saying. And I’m quite sure that sometimes God wants to say something to me, but I can’t hear because of my expectations and my limited context. I pray for openness and freedom. 

Relationships are at the heart of our mission as Sisters of Saint Joseph. My relationship with my then-first grader (now an accountant and a graduate of Chestnut Hill College) has taught me to cherish wisdom coming from unexpected sources.

Merilyn Ryan SSJ

Sister Merilyn grew up in Hudson County, NJ, where she met the Sisters of Saint Joseph at Holy Family Academy in Bayonne.  Much of her work has been in education. She especially loves teaching math, which “challenges us to face our unexamined assumptions.” (But that’s another blog…)

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.

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.