Blessed Are We

    My husband and I recently spent a delightful evening entertaining five Daughters of Charity. As we ate, I inquired about their hometowns and their life’s journey. What rich and diverse stories we were blessed to hear! My first surprise was that not one of the five had grown up in Indiana. Sister Theresa hailed from Chicago, Sister Kate from Baltimore (the home of Mother Elizabeth Ann Seton, the founder of the Daughters in the United States and also the founder of Catholic Schools in America), Sister Caroline from southern Illinois, Sister Joanne from Wisconsin, and Sister Mary from Waco, Texas.

    Their journeys were as varied as their hometowns. Four of them entered the novitiate out of high school, while one considered marriage but said she felt God’s continual nudge until she agreed, “I will give you six months, God, and then I will go on with my plans.” Well, as she put it, “The six months turned into 63 years.”

    Sister Caroline’s 25-year education career began in an elementary classroom of 60! Later, she served as a principal. Parish ministry was her next calling. She eventually served as the Director of the St. Joseph Inner City Outreach Vocational Ministry in Chicago. Currently, she is the spiritual director of the local St. Vincent de Paul diocesan chapter.

     At the age of five, Sister Kate felt drawn to the orphans near her home. She told her mother, “I am going to take care of the orphans when I grow up.” Although she didn’t work in an orphanage, she has spent her lifetime with young children, initially as a first grade teacher, then a principal, and currently as a Director of Mission Integration at St. Vincent Center for Children and Families.

     Originally planning to be a nurse, Sister Joanne instead joined the Daughters and taught chemistry and biology in a high school near Chicago. Interestingly, she was teaching while Sister Theresa was a student there. “She was a great teacher,” according to Theresa. Later, she pursued her LPN license and volunteered for 20 years at St. Mary’s Hospital. These days she divides her time between visiting nursing homes, volunteering at St. Vincent Hospital gift shop, and reading for the blind at WNIN.

      Sister Mary began her religious life in education, but she has since served in many other capacities. She worked on the Pueblo reservation in Arizona for many years before moving into parish ministry, also in Arizona. As of this June, she was reassigned to Evansville where she will be assisting with the retired sisters at Seton.

     As Sister Mary arrives, Sister Theresa heads to Macon, Ga., to work in a homeless shelter. She joined the Daughters after high school and pursued a nursing degree, using that knowledge to work in the Daughters of Charity-sponsored hospitals in Alabama for many years. Later reassigned to Michigan as Director of Mission Integration, she opened health clinics for the uninsured and promoted spirituality. For the past six years she has traveled throughout the Midwest helping young women discern whether God is calling them to a religious vocation.

      Listening to each of their stories, how they were called initially and how they are continuously called to serve in different capacities, left me in awe. The sisters truly live the gospel verse John 21: 22, “You follow me.” Leaving their families, their friends (old and new), they are regularly ask to pull up roots and move to new places to serve God where the need is greatest. As Sister Theresa stated, “Our council recognizes our different talents and personalities and uses them to fulfill God’s mission.”

     It is their complete trust in God’s will that is most inspiring. The sisters place their lives in the control of their council and ultimately God and serve willingly, compassionately and lovingly wherever they are sent. We, as a society, are truly blessed to have women who lay down their lives for others. We can thank them with our prayers, both for those who currently serve and also for those women that God is now calling so that they too will discern his plea and join the most selfless life of all: the religious life.