Sister’s project provides needed basics

Sister Christella Buser is nothing if not practical. And she is personable, listening and talking in equal measure.

Those traits came together again late last week, when she made another delivery in a project that began three years ago. With the help of Sister Clarene Kennedy, Sister Christella packed up several boxes of sample-size toiletries and other personal products and gave them to agencies in both Concordia and Salina.


The project grew out of “listening to people,” Sister Christella explains. “This helps people who don’t have the simplest things.”


And it continues, she notes, by mentioning it to other sisters and people wherever she goes. She is particularly appreciative of the many small donations she receives throughout the year from fellow Sisters of St. Joseph, including those who, like her, live at the congregation’s Motherhouse in Concordia.


In fact, this year those donations came in so fast she needed to make her deliveries early. So instead of waiting until around Thanksgiving, as she has done in the past, she enlisted Sister Clarene and they loaded up the trunk last Thursday. During the afternoon, they made deliveries to Salina’s Ashby House (for women and children), the Rebecca A. Morrison House (for families of patients at Salina Regional Health Center), the Domestic Violence Association of Central Kansas offices in both Salina and Concordia, and Concordia’s Community Resource Council.


“I mention it to someone who tells someone else, and suddenly I have boxes full of little shampoos and lotions,” Sister Christella says with a laugh. “We had to make the deliveries; the need is so great, and I didn’t have any place left to pile it.”


If you would like more information on Sister Christella’s donations, you may call her at the Motherhouse, 243-2113.



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Peace vigil offers prayers for Hiroshima, Nagasaki

Many in the circle around the Sisters of St. Joseph Peace Pole Thursday afternoon were too young to remember Aug. 6, 1945. But others who gathered for the short prayer vigil at the Sisters’ Motherhouse in Concordia remember vividly the day the United States dropped the first atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan. Three days later, U.S. planes dropped another atomic bomb on Nagasaki. Those are the only two instances in which nuclear weapons have been used in wartime.

As part of Thursday’s remembrance ceremony, some of the older participants shared with those younger what they felt when they first learned about the attack that ultimately left some 225,000 dead. About half of that number died in the bombings themselves; the rest died by the end of 1945 from injuries or the combined effects of flash burns, trauma, and radiation burns, compounded by illness, malnutrition and radiation sickness. In both cities, the majority of the dead were civilians.

Six days after the detonation over Nagasaki, on Aug. 15, Japan announced its surrender to the Allied Powers, signing the Instrument of Surrender on Sept. 2, officially ending the Pacific War and therefore World War II.

In Thursday’s vigil, Sister Regina Ann Brummel asked those attending to pray for the victims of the two nuclear bombs, and for an end to continued worldwide nuclear proliferation.

Salina musicians and peace activists Janie Stein and Marty Bates performed as a part of the ceremony. Also in attendance were sisters from the Justice and Peace Center in Salina, which is a ministry of the Sisters of St. Joseph of Concordia.

Kids play & learn at first-ever camp

About 10 Concordia kids laughed, chased each other, learned a little geography and practiced saying “please” and “thank you” in a new program offered three mornings this week at the Motherhouse. And helping them do that were four older girls who have been involved before in other programs offered by the Sisters of St. Joseph of Concordia.

“Missy Mania at the Motherhouse” actually started as a way to broaden the experience for the older girls who were at the Motherhouse from Sunday evening through Wednesday afternoon. Sister Anna Marie Broxterman wanted to develop a relatively short program that would give the girls — Anna Hall, Andrea Mattas, Kara Huntzinger and Jessalyn Allen — a chance to grow in leadership skills and spirituality.

As a part of that, Sister Anna Marie worked with Sisters Julie Christensen, Jean Rosemarynoski and Beverly Carlin to put together the Monday-through-Wednesday morning camp for local children in the fourth, fifth and sixth grades. The older girls would help the younger kids practice skills to get ready to return to school.

The kids spent part of each morning in team games on the west lawn of the Motherhouse and then came inside for more team-building with Math Olympics and Mighty Manners games.

They also played Map Magic and practiced listening skills with a storytelling time.

The teen girls also had reflection time and shared prayers each morning.

Agrégées may help define 21st century religious life

To view a Photo Gallery from Sunday’s ceremony, click HERE.

On her first full day as a Sister of St. Joseph of Concordia, Rosemary Foreman acknowledges that her “exterior life is not going to change much.”

It’s Monday, and she’s taken an extra day off work, to give her time to drive back to her apartment in Topeka. On Tuesday morning she’ll be back at work in the public information office of the Kansas Corporation Commission. She hasn’t decided yet whether she’ll wear to the office the black and gold cross she received Sunday morning.

But then she reflects on her “interior life” as Sister Rosemary, who a day earlier joined the Concordia congregation as its second agrégée:

“There’s an inner warmth,” she begins, trying to find the words. “It’s a belonging, an inner strength, a different kind of energy, a greater confidence in what I’m about and what I’m doing… That all feels like part of the mystery of religious life in today’s world.”

And she understands that she is part of what will define 21st century religious life.

The Sisters of St. Joseph of Concordia went back to their roots in 17th century France to discover agrégée membership, and then revived — and, perhaps, redefined — another way for women to enter religious life.

As the congregation envisions agrégées, they are mature individuals, probably well established in their professions. They may have debts they are paying off or other financial obligations; they may have family responsibilities, such as caring for aging parents. Or they may have professions or professional contracts that would keep them from entering into a long orientation process required by most religious communities.

Rosemary Foreman understands many of those factors. During the time she was feeling called to the Concordia congregation, she faced what she calls the “middle-of-life stuff” that is common: Both her parents became ill and required care before their deaths, and she now finds herself a couple of years away from a state retirement.

She also realized that at age 58, she is older than the “cut-off date” religious communities generally use when talking about vowed members.

That, too, was an issue for Rosabel Flax, the first agrégée to join the Sisters of St. Joseph of Concordia as part of the reconstituted program.
Sister Rosabel had retired as a high school principal in 2004, and although she says she “felt called,” she didn’t really intend to pursue a religious life. “I was too old to become a sister,” she says now with a laugh.

What she wanted to pursue was a new career teaching math.

She did that — but she also gathered more information about the Sisters of St. Joseph. Today, at 59, she is beginning her sixth year as a high school math teacher in Ness City, Kan., and her second full year as an agrégée. She professed her vow of fidelity in June 2008 after two years of study and discussion as a candidate.

She was joined by Sister Rosemary in much of that discussion. The two of them helped define what would be the agrégée form of membership for the Concordia congregation. They both talked with Sister Marcia Allen, who in mid 2008 became president of the congregation, and they even spoke before the Congregational Senate when final approval for the agrégée program was up for a vote.
“I told them this is 21st century religious life,” Sister Rosabel recalls of that Senate session in June 2006.

Sister Rosemary told the members of the Senate about her life, and about getting to know two Sisters of St. Joseph. She also told them about falling away from the Church in her early 20s and being attracted back by the way those two sisters — Anna Marie Broxterman and Jean Rosemarynoski — lived their lives.

“I had the benefit of watching how they lived and how they served ‘the dear neighbor,’” she said. “At the time, I was one of those ‘neighbors.’”
As she got to know more sisters and visited the Motherhouse in Concordia, Rosemary said she was “just drawn to what I felt here, what I saw here. I was overwhelmed by the historical strength of community that carries forward to today.”

Without having had that same experience, Rosemary’s family was surprised by her decision to join the Sisters of St. Joseph, she says. They, like her, had the experience of growing up in a Catholic home in the 1950s and ‘60s, but no real exposure to religious life today.

But having those family members — four sisters, a brother-in-law and a nephew — attend Sunday’s Mass and profession of her vow “opened up a whole new view for them,” she says. “They had not seen this community and had not seen what it is to be a sister today.”

She sees herself — and the agrégée form of being a sister — as part of the way the congregation will move from today into the future.
As religious communities, and the broader Catholic Church, struggle with the challenge of fewer people making a serious commitment to serve, Sister Rosemary believes agrégées and the Sisters of St. Joseph of Concordia can be a model that could be emulated.

“This is a true blending of real everyday life experience and the spiritual charism of this congregation,” she says. “It allows us to benefit from the strengths and wisdom of both.”

SIDEBAR: What is an agrégée, and how did program come about?

In reaching back to their roots in 17th century France, the Sisters of St. Joseph of Concordia have discovered — and revitalized — a type of committed spiritual life for women known as “agrégées.”

The order, which has grown worldwide over the centuries and now has autonomous congregations in more than 50 countries, began in the French city of LePuy in 1650. Based on research into the original constitution and rules for the congregation, written by founder and Jesuit priest Jean-Pierre Medaille, the sisters now recognize that in addition to vowed members of the order, there were also “agrégées,” from a French word meaning “attached to” or “aggregated with.”

An agrégée — pronounced ah-gre-ZHEY — did not make vows of poverty, chastity and obedience. But she lived according to the rules of the Sisters of St. Joseph, and was recognized by the local people and the local churches as a Sister of St. Joseph.

In the past decades, the modern Sisters of St. Joseph of Concordia studied their origins and their original spirituality, and have now revived that early practice based on what they learned. The Senate of the Concordia congregation approved agrégée membership in 2006.

The first modern agrégée professed a vow of fidelity to the Sisters of St. Joseph of Concordia a year ago. Sister Rosabel Flax is a high school math teacher in Ness City, Kan., who spent more than two years talking and praying with the Concordia sisters before making her vow in July 2008.

On Sunday, Sister Rosemary Foreman became the second agrégée to join the Concordia congregation.

Three other women are currently agrégée candidates.

Agrégées are defined as those persons who commit themselves to active and inclusive love of God and the dear neighbor as expressed in the spirit and spirituality of the Sisters of St. Joseph of Concordia. In almost every aspect, they are viewed as full members of the congregation, meaning they have a voice and a vote on congregational issues.

There are three significant differences, however.

• “Vowed sisters” profess the canonical — meaning governed by Church law — vows of poverty, chastity and obedience. As part of the vow of poverty, an individual sister relinquishes all personal wealth and income; at the same time, the congregation assumes responsibility for her economic well being for the rest of her life.

• “Agrégée sisters” profess a vow of fidelity to the congregation, but it is noncanonical, meaning that it is not part of Church law and is instead a private vow between that sister and the Concordia congregation. It also means that the agrégée does not relinquish her finances to the congregation, and the congregation assumes no financial responsibility for her.

• Also, vowed sisters begin their religious life with a formal “formation” that includes a postulancy and novitiate that are, together, about three years. During this time, they have left their previous life, but haven’t yet taken up their works as a Sister of St. Joseph. For agrégées, the period of being a candidate may be about the same length of time, but they do not leave behind their outside lives. Instead, they meet with mentors and study around their regular work and life schedules.

Other congregations of St. Joseph have developed similar definitions or are doing their own study, but the Concordia congregation is believed to be the first to recognize agrégées as full members of the community.

In Concordia, the definition of who may be an agrégée will be refined as individuals feel called to the community, explained Sister Marcia Allen, the president of the congregation.

“This opens up our charism to people who might not have traditionally given thought to religious life,” Sister Marcia said. “We haven’t answered all the questions, but we will — as they’re asked.”

PHOTO GALLERY: Newest agrégée joins Sisters of St. Joseph

Messages Home: Notes from Alabama

Sister Loretta Jasper is serving as a “military life counselor” at Fort Rucker, Alabama, for six weeks this summer. This is her second “Message Home” about her time there. To read her earlier report, click HERE.

Sisters, Agregees, Associates, family and friends—

I am currently “de-steaming”, following my walk and shower. We’ve had lots of rain this past week, and thick a.m. knife-cutting fogs. If I could just figure a way to tote my towel and shampoo while walking, I’d be set.

Anecdotes re: my motel digs
— A group of about 30 National Guards from Arizona who have been staying at “my” motel left a few minutes ago. They had a week of helicopter training in anticipation of being deployed to Iraq come Oct. At least several of this group are being deployed for the first time: one indicated he is retiring upon his return from Iraq.
— One of these a.m.’s I walked into the breakfast room for a refill of coffee after my walk, into this mass of camouflage-attired testosterone eating sugar coated cold cereal and toaster-heated waffles. Get back LO-Reh-Tah!!
— Last Saturday I happened to be in the lobby when they were checking into the motel. I could tell one soldier was having difficulty breathing. His commander indicated: “Anxious about being here?” I did the chat thing with the distressed soldier. He had been to the Emergency Room: MRI, and walked out with a bucket load of meds, etc. I stated: “Sounds like pleurisy to me.” It was. He called his Physician’s Assistant Mamma who concurred. Thurs., he was fine, after another trip to medical assist, and having the right medication in hand.
— Also, one of the soldiers also staying in this motel, was walking his dog, Dizzy, a cocker spaniel (need I say more for you cocker walkers). I did the chat thing again. This soldier was trying to move toward not needing to take his trauma stabilizing medications following a rather life threatening helicopter crash some time ago so he could resume piloting a helicopter. Without wearing the sign, Dizzy was his care dog. Dizzy, was most attentive to the soldier…responded to any unexpected movements around us. This soldier is here from CO. Springs.
— One of the chaplains who returned from Iraq three weeks ago, and family leave this past Friday evening, was checking into the motel. He recognized me as one of the supporters and assisters of his welcome home gatherings from Iraq. He had been visiting in California. Familiar faces are always so important and welcome!
— This a.m. while fending the knife-cutting fog during my walk, one of the soldiers from Arizona (with a New York accent) was running. He lost our motel. I’m guessing he might have missed the van leaving for the airport, had our paths not crossed at that point. Chatting serves so many purposes in the course of a day.

Updates and anecdotes, overall:
— This past Friday, I was stopping into the various areas of support and assist my predecessors and successors will continue to tend.
I stopped into one of three chapels at Fort Rucker to leave brochures and to chat a bit. The soldier who was tending the desk provided indications of having the desk assignment due to physical and emotional challenges.
— I also visited the child development center, chatted with various staff and said hello to children. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to translate the message which accompanies the various and sundry children who come and sit beside me when I arrive.
— This past week, I met with a couple who is here due to Compassion leave from Hawaii to be near her family. Married two years, buried their 19-month-old two months ago following their 10-month struggle with infant’s illness/death. Fortunately, soldier is being reassigned as a helicopter flight instructor here at Fort Rucker vs. deployed to Iraq in order to tend to the grief.
— This coming Friday as a farewell to me, the staff with whom I share people tasks, within the same large room of cubicles will join together for cookies and milk. This is a precedence created by my first colleague here at Fort Rucker when he completed his rotation in mid-February ’09. We will be eating chocolate chip cookies made by one of the staff. Fun, huh!
One week from today, Aug. 9, I will be returning to Concordia for the greater part of August before beginning a semester length rotation in a Fort Riley based elementary school.
I will be slipping in a bit late for the (bobbin) Lacemaking Retreat at Manna.
Your prayerful support remains invaluable to me. Know that those who wish they could join me, truly are doing so.
Loretta Jasper

Week of ‘teshuva’ wraps up at Manna House

Two nationally known advocates of peace and justice wrap up a week of lectures and group discussions this morning as the 2009 Theological Institute at Manna House of Prayer comes to a close.

Jim and Shelley Douglass of Birmingham, Ala., have focused on both spiritual and political leaders during “Teshuva: Turning to Nonviolence.”

Using the Hebrew word “teshuva” — meaning “turning” or “a return to God” — as their theme, the couple shared duties to look at the lives of John F. and Robert Kennedy, Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X and Jesus.

The annual weeklong seminar, sponsored by the Sisters of St. Joseph of Concordia, began Monday and continued through this morning (Saturday). About 30 members of the congregation and laypeople attended.

Shelley Douglass, in a lecture Wednesday, called Gandhi “a prime example of teshuva.” Born Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi in 1869, he was from a wealthy Hindu family in India who was educated as a lawyer in England. By the time he was assassinated in 1948, he had become the preeminent political and spiritual leader of India, and is today called the “Father of the Nation.” His birthday, Oct. 2, is commemorated in India as a national holiday and worldwide as the International Day of Non-Violence.

In reviewing the major events of Gandhi’s life, Shelley Douglass called them “turnings” that moved him gradually from his birth and upbringing to the nonviolent resistance that to his role in India’s independence.

Later in the week, Jim Douglass drew the same kind of connections as he reviewed the life of Robert Kennedy.

Life Gandhi’s family, the Kennedys were wealthy — but they were Irish and Catholic, and patriarch Joe Kennedy raised his sons to be successful as a means of becoming acceptable in America.

After the death of the eldest son, Joe, death in World War II and the assassination of the President John F. Kennedy in 1963, the mantle of the family’s success fell to the third son, Robert or Bobby.

But there were many “turnings” in his life before he assumed that mantle, Jim Douglass explained. Through the early and mid 1960s, Bobby Kennedy was dramatically affected by broadening experiences with the poverty he saw in America, the Civil Rights movement, growing military losses in the Vietnam War, the crushing conditions of American Indians and California farm workers and all types of injustice around the world.

Robert F. Kennedy — who was given the middle name Francis after St. Francis of Assasi — had become, by 1968, “a man of peace,” Douglass said. He had also turned away from his background of wealth and privilege to embrace a true compassion for the most downtrodden peoples of the United States and the world.

He was assassinated in June 1968, just as his nomination as the Democratic candidate for president was assured.

The individuals profiled during the week shared a deep understanding of a basic principle of nonviolence, Shelley Douglass explained.

When there are oppressive factors in a culture or political system — such as racism, poverty or injustice — the people being oppressed will react. But that generally brings on active repression from those in power. And when the people react to that strengthened repression, those in power repress even harder — often violently.

“How do you stop that process of escalation?” she asked. “You stop it by absorbing the violence yourself. … Nonviolence exposes the system when it’s a system built on using power to oppress people.”

But, the price — as illustrated by the stories told during the week — paid by those embracing nonviolence is often high: All of the men profiled as examples of “teshuva” were killed in their pursuit of a different response to oppression.

The Douglasses are nationally recognized activists, Christian theologians and authors of more than a half dozen books.

Jim Douglass’ most recent book is “JFK and the Unspeakable,” which discusses the assassination of President John F. Kennedy as a conspiracy ordered by unknown parties and carried out by the CIA with help from the Mafia and elements in the FBI.

In 1975 the Douglasses founded Ground Zero Center for Nonviolent Action to protest the planned Trident missile nuclear submarine base on the Kitsap Peninsula in Washington state.

They later moved to Birmingham, Ala., to establish Mary’s House, for homeless or indigent people in need of long-term health care.

For information on upcoming programs at Manna House of Prayer, click HERE.

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