So proud
Sr. Anne with Genese and friends
In 2004, IHM sister Anne Wisda applied for one of the IHM Ministry grants to help support a young woman, Genese Sauntilus, at the University of Fondwa, just being founded as the only university in the mountains of Haiti. Last week five years later she returned to Fondwa to celebrate the first graduating class, and especially Genese. Graduation day was hot and humid with four hundred people in attendance. Graduation began with a lengthy Mass and lasted six hours. Father Joseph Philippe, founder and principal of the school called each student up individually to share some positive traits and something humorous about the student. He then invited individuals who had been supportive of the student to come up to give him/her the diploma. In the name of the IHM community Sister Anne was called to present Genese with her diploma. Her family was so proud. After graduation the Sauntilus family with Sr. Anne and also Therese Terns IHM Associate and Kim Redigan, who are very strong supporters of the Fondwa project enjoyed a typical Haitian meal of rice, beans, chicken, goat and soft drinks. Genese invited her IHM supporters to see her sustainable development project in her home town of Carefour Dufort. So the next day before they left Genese gave her friends a tour of her wholesale store supplied with 50 pound bags of rice, 100 pound bags of flour, 100 pund bags of sugar, large boxes of detergent and bottles of vegetable oil. Peasants will purchase these products and transport them by donkey to places in the mountains where they can be re-sold for a little profit.
The IHM community is so proud and happy to have helped one Haitian woman to follow her dream. Genese has become an educated leader for her own community.
1 comment June 30, 2009
All That Glitters…
Entrance procession
All that glitters is not gold, and I know gold when I see it. On Saturday Sr. Agnes Anderson, with whom I share community, gathered her family, including her mother, her twelve syblings with their families, colleagues, and IHM friends for a joyful Golden Jubilee Mass. A definite Wow! In her reflection Sr. Agnes spoke about the power of questions. She spoke of learning early in her teaching ministry that the key to teaching was not so much in telling her young students information, but in asking them questions that engaged them in the learning. What did you like about the story? Where were you in the story?
In her own life too she had learned that God was with her as she stayed with her questions. When she remained true to the questions God led her to amazing experiences she never would have imagined, for example, teaching elementary teachers in Ghana how to teach. Now as she reflects back on fifty years of IHM vowed life she sees that through her questions she learned that God was enough. She sees that she had always had enough. Sr. Agnes concluded the reflection by singing and inviting the congregation to sing with her “Oh what do we do with so great a love, so great a love?” All of us left chapel lifted up on that love.
Add comment June 29, 2009
Meet Sister Laura
Sister Laura (Laura Mary) Hardage, IHM, is a full-time chaplain at St. Joseph Healthcare, which includes two hospitals and nearly 700 beds in the Diocese of Lexington, Ky. Sister Laura works in the largest critical care unit in the hospital, primarily with patients who have undergone cardiac or pulmonary surgeries. “We’re a regional heart institute, and many of our patients are in critical condition,” she says. “A crisis can happen very quickly, so we have a chaplain available on-site 24/7. There is a great emphasis on being with people when they are at their most vulnerable, including as they prepare for death. Being with them is a privilege.”
Sister Laura was drawn to St. Joseph Healthcare because of its values and strong commitments to the poor – values and commitments shared by the IHM Sisters. “We care for the whole person here,” she explains. “Many of our patients come from the impoverished areas in the Appalachian Mountains. They aren’t accustomed to being treated with dignity and respect – it actually comes as a surprise to them!” Sometimes that respect comes with a healthy dose of tough love. Sister Laura recalls a 40-year-old mother of three who was addicted to drugs. The woman needed heart valve replacement. Sister Laura told her emphatically, “God has given you another chance. Don’t mess it up!” The patient was drug-free for about six-weeks prior to surgery and has developed a strong support system, joining a Narcotics Anonymous group, to help her battle her addiction. “She’s doing well, although she’s still hospitalized with IV antibiotics,” reports Sister Laura. “This is what I appreciate about St. Joe’s —everyone gets the same top care and the same respect, regardless of their circumstances or their ability to pay.”
In addition to her role as chaplain, Sister Laura is also a member of the St. Joseph Healthcare Foundation board of directors, as well as several groups working to improve the lives and health of the marginalized within the Lexington community. For instance, through the Justice Committee of the University of Kentucky Newman Center, her home parish, Sister Laura is involved with BUILD – Building a United Interfaith Lexington through Direct-action. “BUILD has 21 religious congregations working together to address community issues,” Sister Laura explains. “For instance, Lexington had rehab programs available to men addicted to drugs, but none for women. Through BUILD, women now have access to services. In fact, St. Joe’s has hired some of them, and they’re getting second chances through employment we’ve developed for women addicted to drugs.”
Sister Laura’s love of those to whom she ministers – both at St. Joseph Healthcare – and through her volunteer ministries — is obvious. “It’s a blessing to me,” she says simply.
Add comment June 25, 2009
Nuns and proud of it
www.youtube.com/watch?v=4EHnlF70Kz4
If you’re interested in nuns, you don’t want to miss this exhibit called “Women & Spirit: Catholic Sisters in America.” If you live near Cincinnati, OH; Dallas, Texas; Washington, D.C.; Dubuque, Iowa or Liberty Island, New York you’re particularly fortunate because the exhibit will be shown there in the coming months. However, even the website gives a wonderful thumbnail sketch of the amazing contributions of nuns in America. As I read about this project I feel blessed to be part of this amazing group of women. Treat yourself to a trip to this website.
3 comments May 28, 2009
A sybling with questions
Again Michelle has asked some great questions. I’ll respond, and I’m hoping some readers will share their insights, further questions, and/or stories as well. There’s a wealth of wisdom in this on-line community.
Michelle writes:
I think that now some of my questions have been answered, but what I previously was burning to know about was how often I’d be able to communicate with her, not many websites openly discussed this (although yours did, thank you). But, there are some questions that have not been answered:
• I’ve always known my sister by her birth name, what is the approach that most places take when it comes to the family? Are we to try our best to call her by her new name or is it okay if we still call her by her birth name?
• Will she get health insurance and life insurance? If she has a serious medical need that pops up while at the convent, will she be able to receive prompt and adequate medical care? (She plans on not being cloistered).
• I want to thank you profoundly for understanding the difficulty that my sister and I are going through in terms of the future, not many understand the closeness of our relationship. We are the best of friends, and I’m having a hard time imagining losing that closeness. Yes, I’ll still get to see her, but I’m afraid that we will no longer be best friends, that she’ll have readymade best friends in her convent and I will have to find another person to be my confidant. Yet even if she didn’t want to become a nun I think this is something that I would still struggle with. Obviously this isn’t something that you can easily answer, but I’m telling you this so that you know what my biggest fear is, and maybe others can relate.
• There are all of these great opportunities for the discerning to go on retreats with the particular order they are looking at, would it be okay if I went just to truly get a feel for where my sister will be spending the rest of her life? Are there any open houses or retreats for the discerning and their families? I think that would help quell the fear and get many questions answered as well as help the families to truly taste what their daughter’s life will be like and to work out any lingering issues that need to be addressed.
Thank you for taking the time to answer all of my questions, I appreciate your dedication to this website, it has really been a blessing for me!
Michelle
Dear Michelle,
And I appreciate your passionate and honest questions. I must respond first to your concern that your sister and you will not be best friends any longer and that she will instead have ready made best friends in the convent. Although your sister will gradually establish good friendships among the sisters, they will never substitute for your deep bond. I always refer to my sister as my best friend. As you said, your sister’s entrance into religious life will necessitate change and growth in your relationship, much as it would if she got married. Change, not diminishment. You and your sister are very fortunate.
I rather like your idea of bringing a serious discerner’s family to the convent for a “Come and See.” Actually that often happens rather informally (cutting down the angst a bit). They might come for a tour or an event or just come in to talk with the vocation director together.
What’s in a name? A lot! In more traditional communities sisters do receive a new name when they receive the habit and enter novitiate. The new name symbolizes their taking on a new life dedicated to God. Although families try to respect that new name, practically speaking they most often use the familiar birth name. In other communities like the IHMs sisters keep their Baptismal names. As we studied the Vatican II documents we were enlivened by understanding the primacy of our Baptismal call. We recognize religious life as one way of living out our foundational Baptismal call to live the Gospel of Jesus.
Your concerns about medical insurance and swift medical care can be answered easily by “Yes” and Yes.” No sister would be left without health insurance.
Again, Michelle, thanks for your questions. You and your sister and your family are in my prayers.
2 comments May 27, 2009
Question- How about the syblings of discerners?
I recently received a most interesting question from Michelle. (Look under “Becoming an IHM sister.” ) Michelle wonders if there are any resources out there for the syblings of women discerning a religious vocation. What questions do syblings have? What do they need in order to understand and support their sister? I reassured Michelle that she won’t lose her sister, but I want to ask readers, “What has your experience been?” and “What suggestions would you give?”
Add comment May 15, 2009
Meet Sr. Michelle
Sister bears witness to Haitian struggles
Upon her recent return from Haiti, Michelle Denton, IHM, reflected on her most riveting experience.
“At an orphanage operated by Mother Theresa’s Missionary Sisters of Charity, there was a line of women waiting to give up their children,” she says. “These children were skeletal, with the huge bellies of malnutrition.
“Because of the severe malnutrition, the orphanage was the only chance they had to survive,” says Michele, who traveled to Haiti with a delegation from the World Community of Christian Mediation. Organized as a pilgrimage, participants bore witness to the unimaginable conditions of the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere as they visited cities, rural areas and fishing villages.
Lack – of food, money, jobs, education, health care, potable water, basic sanitation, utilities – is the hallmark of Haiti.
“We were often approached by beggars,” Michele recalls. “We had been advised not to give anything to them, but rather work with one of the charitable programs and organizations that bring relief and desperately needed care to the country. Projects such as the IHM ‘Pennies for Progress’ initiative, which benefits the people of Fondwa, Haiti, or the St. Boniface Haiti Foundation, which provides health care, education and community support.
“One of the members of our delegation, a Haitian doctor, said that of all the needs in Haiti, education is the most pressing,” Michele notes. “If more people were educated, many of the current challenges could be met.”
In spite of the deplorable conditions, Michele reports on “pieces of hope.” Solar-powered traffic lights. Solar panels on some of the houses in rural areas to augment sporadic electricity. The spirit, faith and friendliness of the people.
“Just being there – even if our group didn’t actively change lives – we seemed to bring hope to the Haitian people,” Michele notes. “Our visit said that we care and will share our experience with others so that conditions can be improved.”
At Mass on the Feast of the Immaculate Conception, Michele renewed her vows as an IHM Sister. After she read her vows in English, a translator read them in Creole so the Haitian people attending Mass could understand what was happening.
4 comments May 8, 2009
Everything you need is on line
Well, maybe not everything, but it’s hard to imagine what we did before Google! I just want to alert you to a Virtual Discernment Retreat on our IHM website. Click on the link below. A number of women have recommended if, saying they found it helpful. I suggest that you treat it like a retreat, and take time to reflect and pray with it. God bless you as you discern.
http://www.ihmsisters.org/www/Ways_of_Joining_Us/virtualdiscernmentretreat.asp
1 comment April 14, 2009
Come and See weekend
I’m so happy to invite you to the first ever Come and See weekend at our IHM Motherhouse May 1-3. You can meet a number of IHM sisters –up close and personal– as well as learn some helpful tools for discerning. I know that praying about a call to religious life can feel lonely since families and friends often don’t understand. However, being in a small community with other inquirers can provide a lot of support. So– come to pray, learn some good tools for your discernment, find out what makes IHMs tick, and hang out with us. Click on the flyer for details and call or email to register.
Add comment April 3, 2009
Meet Sr. Peg
IHMs in Action: GECKO Project
“One of the saddest things I have experienced in South Africa is the high number of street children in every town and village,” says Peg (Cornelia) O’Shea, IHM.
For the last two years, Sister Peg, who has ministered in Africa for 14 years, has played a pivotal role in protecting these children through her involvement with the GECKO project – Giving Each Child Kindness and Orientation. GECKO works to provide safe and clean accommodations, food, clothing, substance abuse rehabilitation, life skills counseling and education.
The children of the GECKO project are abandoned. They are AIDS orphans or are former drug addicts. Jenny Uzzell established the project in her small, rented tearoom near Howick Falls, South Africa. Although in poor health and with only a seasonal business, Jenny feeds, clothes and houses 15 to 35 children at a time.
Sister Peg describes herself as “definitely in the background,” but she has helped GECKO organize, find resources, as well as with networking and strategizing. She is part of the GECKO Committee, which was established this past spring. The committee will facilitate achieving nonprofit status for GECKO, which will pave the way for future funding, such as the IHM ministry grant for an after-school tutor for the children the project recently received.
Sister Peg’s long-range interest in the project goes beyond assisting the former street children currently being cared for.
“We’re trying to see the big picture of safety and support for children,” she says. “I pray that we will fulfill Jenny’s dreams of schooling for the abandoned children now in her care and that we will help to establish safe houses for street children in all the surrounding communities, with education as a centerpiece of their lives.
“South Africa is filled with hope, but we have to do something for the children.”
Add comment March 25, 2009
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