April 30 2010: ‘Peace and Love’ never go out of style, by Jonathan Wild

A three-day pass to the 1969 Woodstock Festival — “three days of peace and music” — cost $18. I still remember the buzz about it back then.

With nearly half a million people in attendance Woodstock attracted worldwide attention, but it was not the first time such an event had been staged in the name of peace. The folk music revival of the 1960s paved the way for the era known for Peace & Love, and Flower Power, building on the early work of artists like Pete Seeger and Woody Guthrie in the 1940s and ’50s.

The Korean War gave way to Viet Nam, and the civil rights movement boiled over in the ’60s, creating a situation that cried out for peace. Artists like Bob Dylan and Joan Baez and groups like the Weavers and the Beatles signaled that the baby boomers, products of war and not-so inevitable peace that follows, were coming of age and that change was in the air.

In 1958, an Englishman named Gerald Holtom had designed the modern day peace symbol based on the semaphore letters for “N” and “D,” an abbreviation of “nuclear disarmament.” The symbol quickly made its way across the Atlantic to be used in civil rights marches and anti-war rallies. It was deliberately never copyrighted to stand as a true symbol for freedom.

I remember seeing the peace symbol virtually everywhere when I was attending high school in St. Louis, Mo.

In the years since then, the symbol has never completely faded from popularity. But it has recently enjoyed a terrific resurgence.

Peace seems inexorably tied in to the cycles of art, life, love, literature and of history. The idea of peace suggests freedom from petty quarrels and disagreements. It is people living together in harmony; an end to hostilities.

But it also encompasses the idea of inner peace, peace of mind and spirit, serenity and contentment. We must work diligently to make the abstract concept of peace become concrete.

The idealism of the 1960s eventually gave way to the excesses of the ’70s. Economic globalization of the ’80s led to the media explosion of the Internet in the ’90s. Somehow, despite the undisputable effects of terrorism and technology at the dawning of a new millennium, here we are in 2010, thankfully still searching for peace.
Peace unto those who continue the quest to keep the spirit of peace alive within us all.

— Jonathan Wild is an English teacher at Cloud County Community College.

Array of projects show ‘working lunches’ are working

Thursday’s “working lunch” at the Nazareth Motherhouse proved that the series of community meetings really is about working and not just about lunch.

Some 45 participants took part in reports on projects that have grown out of the meetings, which began in January 2009. Thursday’s session was the 10^th in the series, designed to identify community challenges and seek solutions by encouraging people and groups to work together.

Reports at Thursday’s lunch included:

• Nearly two dozen gardeners have signed up for plots in the new Concordia Community Garden of Hope, on the northeast corner of the Motherhouse project. There are 26 plots — each 12-by-46 feet — available in the garden, and 23 have been claimed by local gardeners. Anyone interested in signing up for one of the remaining plots, or volunteering to help out at the garden, may call Cecelia Thrash or Sister Betty Suther at 785-243-4428.

• “There’s still a lot of life in the Year of Peace Committee,” according to Sister Jean Rosemarynoski, who led the discussion in that small group. The effort began last September with a proclamation by Mayor Greg Hattan and has continued with projects, workshops and speakers, as well as weekly columns written by people throughout Concordia and published in the Blade-Empire.

In June, the committee is sponsoring a showing and discussion of the classic western “High Noon,” and in July will present a lecture and discussion by author and peace activist Dr. Terrence Rynne.

• Crystal Paredes announced a new grant program for Concordia, specifically aimed at helping children in foster care or from low-income families gain access to college. “Kansas Kids @ Gear-Up” is part of the national Gear-Up program, with funding through the U.S. Department of Education. Hosted by Wichita State University, the first Kansas Kids @ Gear-Up office is in Topeka, and the second is opening in Concordia.

• The Sisters of St. Joseph announced they will host the Concordia Festival of Trees this coming December. The congregation’s Development Office is planning the event, and director Martha Bryant is working to get local groups and organizations involved. Proceeds from the fund-raising event would then go back to the groups and organizations that participated. For more information on the plans, or to volunteer in any way for the December event, call Bryant at 785-243-2113, ext. 1225, or email her at mbryant@csjkansas.org.

• Cecelia Thrash from Manna House of Prayer provided the group with details about the upcoming “Prayer and Action” program offered by the Catholic Diocese of Salina. Up to 60 teen volunteers will be in Concordia during June and early July to help residents with chores around their homes. For more information, call Our Lady of Perpetual Help Church at 785-243-1099.

The small groups also came together to discuss a possible survey of low-income people in Cloud County, to get a better idea of what services now being provided are most important and what other kinds of additional services or assistance people would find most useful.

“The idea is to mentor and assist people wherever we can,” explained Sister Marcia Allen, who has been working as part of the smaller group addressing issues of poverty. “We want to find ways to help, but not just in handouts.”

Local social service agencies would be asked to help identify people to be included in the survey, and residents would be asked to volunteer to complete the interviews.

The next “working lunch” in the series is scheduled for June 23. You do not have to have attended earlier forums to join the process, and those planning to come are asked to RSVP to Sister Jean Rosemarynoski at 785-243-2149 or sisterjean@csjkansas.org.

Annual tour for Concordia fourth-graders, April 29. 2010

Each year, all the fourth-graders from Concordia Elementary School spend one spring afternoon touring the Motherhouse, with Sisters of St. Joseph as their guides.

This group was led by Sister Francis Margaret Otter, who told stories both about the historic building and about the sisters who have lived here throughout the years.

Congregational leaders meet in Concordia

Leaders from more than a dozen congregations of religious women are meeting in Concordia through Wednesday. This is the Region XIII meeting of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious, and is being hosted by the Sisters of St, Joseph of Concordia.

One of the biggest chunks of time during the discussion sessions is devoted to considering “Transformative Elements for Religious Life in the Future.” The sisters are reviewing and reflecting on “transformative elements” that were first developed 20 years ago, to see the role those elements play in religious life today and how they can be further developed.

Also on the program was a presentation of the documentary “Interrupted Lives: Catholic Sisters in Eastern Europe” and a discussion of the research by Sisters Margaret Nacke and Mary Savoie, both Sisters of St. Joseph of Concordia, that led to that film’s creation.

On Tuesday evening, the sisters toured the National Orphan Train Museum in Concordia. Curator Muriel Anderson was on hand to explain the history of the “Orphan Train Movement” in the United States, as well as how the museum in Concordia came into being. The museum itself is a renovated 1917 Union Pacific depot located just north of downtown Concordia.

City helps sisters restore 122-year-old building

The new Neighbor to Neighbor center has received a $5,000 grant from the city of Concordia to help cover the costs of renovating its two-story brick building on East Sixth Street.

The Sisters of St. Joseph had applied for the money — part of the 2009 Downtown Concordia Improvement Grant Program — to help pay for updating the outside of the 122-year-old building at 103 E. Sixth St.

The renovations covered by the grant proposal include removing facades added decades after the structure was built in 1888, replacing all the windows and doors, building a wheelchair-accessible ramp at the main entrance and repairing and rebuilding the concrete pad and basement stairs at the rear of the building.

The grant from the city went toward nearly $16,500 paid to local contractors for that work.

But that amount does not include the extensive interior renovation or any of the labor provided by employees of the Sisters of St. Joseph.

The Concordia congregation purchased the building a year ago. Since then, the former home of Conn’s Appliance and TV has been completely redesigned, with new sheetrock, flooring, bathroom fixtures and plumbing, lighting, cabinets and doors, appliances, an interior staircase and paint. Greg Gallagher, the sisters’ facility administrator, has served as project manager, while employees Gene Ganstrom, Curtis Mansfield, Brad Snyder, Jim Helton and Renn Allsman have done most of the interior renovations.

Last month members of the Improvement Grant Review Committee — city engineer Eric Johnson and downtown property owners Corinna Hood and Kirk Lowell — toured the building with Gallagher and several sisters.

On hand were the three women who will operate Neighbor to Neighbor — Sisters Pat McLennon, Jean Befort and Ramona Medina — as well as president of the congregation, Sister Marcia Allen.

The three committee members were impressed with the work both inside and outside of the old building. As Johnson walked through the first floor and then upstairs to the still-to-be-finished second floor, he asked questions about construction techniques and the craftsmanship shown in the renovations.

“These are people who take pride in their work,” he said of the sisters’ employees.

The sisters applied for the city grant last November, and the review was to verify the work had been completed in compliance with grant rules. The grants are designed to help property owners return their building exteriors to their original construction condition while encouraging revitalization and economic growth in downtown Concordia.

Neighbor to Neighbor is now scheduled to open in early May. It will provide a wide array of services for women and for women with young children and be a resource center to help them find other services they need, said Sister Pat.

Services offered will likely include nutrition and parenting classes, workshops on healthy living, personal counseling and information on what help is available through other agencies. The center will also have small facilities to meet what Sister Pat described as “basic needs” — showers, a washer and dryer and a kitchen.

Sister Ramona noted that services and volunteer opportunities will be added and developed as the need for them is identified.

New book recalls ‘The Sisters Who Loved Me’

As Marie Coleman tells the stories, life for a little girl in the 1920s at an Abilene, Kan., orphanage was a daily adventure as she discovered the many kindnesses of the Catholic sisters who were in charge.

The stories also make clear this was a different world, at least from our 21^st century perspective. Early deaths were not that unusual, hand-me-down clothes were the norm and “begging sisters” helped ensure there was food on the table…

The 24 stories in The Sisters Who Loved Me offer Marie Coleman’s tender and touching memories as an “orphan” in the care of the Sisters of St. Joseph, combined with a nuanced view of how tough times really were in the years she lived at St. Joseph Home in Abilene.

She was just a year and a half old when she arrived in 1922, after the death of her mother; she would remain at the Home until 1934. And the rest of her life story makes it clear that she was shaped by those years: In 1939 she joined the Sisters of St. Joseph of Concordia. She was formally accepted into the congregation — or, as they called it then, “took the habit” — a year later. This year she celebrates her 70^th anniversary as a Sister of St. Joseph of Concordia.

Sister Marie, who is now 89 and lives at the congregation’s Motherhouse in Concordia, says she started thinking about gathering the stories from her childhood about 10 years ago. At the urging of Sister Bette Moslander, also of Concordia, she began writing them down.

But it’s only been in the last year or so that the idea developed to gather them into a book. Sister Marie worked with the congregation’s archivist, Sister Bernardine Pachta, to find photographs of each sister to go with her story. She also worked with Sarah Jenkins, the congregation’s communications director, to edit the stories and design and layout the book. Many others in the congregation — including Sister Marcia Allen, president of the Sisters of St. Joseph of Concordia; Sister Lucy Schneider of Concordia; Sister Jodi Creten of Atlanta, Ga.; and Jan McCormick of Chapman, Kan. — helped with history and factual details.

Sister Marie’s 72-page book is available at the Nazareth Gift Shop at the Motherhouse in Concordia, or you can CLICK HERE to download a printable order form. The book is $4; handling and postage is $2.50 per book for those mailed.

‘Working lunch’ to consider next steps to address poverty

When those taking part in the ongoing community forums sit down to a “working lunch” on Thursday, April 29, they hope to move beyond statistics and cold data as they look for ways to address poverty in Cloud County.

But the numbers do provide a place to start:

Consider that more than 54 percent of the children in Cloud County schools are eligible for free or reduced lunches. Statewide that number is less than 43 percent, and in neighboring Clay County it’s 35 percent.

Or consider that more than 1,600 Cloud County residents — 16.6 percent of the people here — live on less than $22,050 a year for a family of four. That “federal poverty guideline” works out to a gross paycheck every two weeks of right at $850 for Mom, Dad and two kids. Clay County’s rate is just 14.7 percent, which matches the statewide number.

Or consider that the asthma rate for children — often viewed as one indicator of poor living conditions — is three times as high in Cloud County as it is in Clay, and more than twice the rate for Kansas statewide.

The statistics — all from Kids Count 2009 — are difficult for many people to comprehend. But even more difficult is finding solutions that truly serve the people living in poverty.

And that will be the focus at Thursday’s working lunch. It is from 11:45 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. at the Nazareth Motherhouse, and everyone is invited to take part. You do not have to have attended earlier forums to join the process now. Those planning to come are asked to RSVP by noon Wednesday to Sister Jean Rosemarynoski at 243-2149 or sisterjean@csjkansas.org.

This lunch meeting will be the first community forum since Dr. Donna Beegle presented a daylong workshop titled “Poverty 101” at the end of March. Beegle, who grew up in multigenerational poverty and now works with groups across the United States in addressing the cycles of poverty, urged the workshop participants to look at Concordia and Cloud County to find local solutions.

To that end, forum participants will have a chance to review and discuss a survey that’s being proposed for Cloud County. The survey would require interviews with people living in poverty, to get a better sense of the challenges they face and what kind of assistance would help them most.

“We have anecdotes about individual people,” explained Sister Jean Rosemarynoski of the Sisters of St. Joseph, “but this would give us a better and broader picture of what kind of help would truly make a difference.”

Local social service agencies would be asked to help identify people to be included in the survey, and residents would be asked to volunteer to complete the interviews.

Also at Thursday’s meeting, other small groups will have a chance to discuss progress on their projects and then report to the larger group on what is happening or needs to happen next.

Those small group projects include:

• The Concordia Year of Peace, which began in September 2009
• A local mediation center
• A walk-in medical clinic for low-income or the uninsured
• Enhanced local public transportation

Those attending the lunch will also get an update on one project that is well under way: The Concordia Community Garden of Hope, which is expected to be available for planting April 30.

April 23, 2010: Live in the moment, accept yourself and others, by Courtney Monzon

Last summer, while I was in Colorado, I had the opportunity to visit the Columbine Memorial, which commemorates the 12 students and one teacher killed in the 1999 school shooting.

It made me realize the way that we treat others deeply affects other living beings. The two students who started the tragedy at Columbine High School were victims of badgering and intimidation by their fellow students.  True, we all have the ability to destroy or neglect life, but we all have the choice to help live peacefully among one another by supporting and caring for other living beings.

The one thing we all know is that we are alive and want to go on living. We are all brothers and sisters, no matter what race, color, religion or sex we are.  We need to stop and think about our words and actions toward other people in our community and world.  We must always think about what we do and say to others. Sometimes that doesn’t always happen, but we must take responsibility for what we do.

Everyone experiences pain inside, and at times we may feel angry and upset. But we need to find someone who understands our suffering.  When you understand a condition or person, most of what you do will help. We all should practice nonviolence and also express it to others. To show nonviolence to others would be showing love, gentleness, kindness, joy and respect.

As living beings, we may experience feelings of jealousy. Feelings of jealousy can turn into hatred. I know there are many times when I felt jealous of others, but I have learned how to accept myself for who I am.

Promoting peace within oneself will help bring on peace within the community and world we live in.  It depends on each and every one of us.

I believe people take things for granted, especially life. Life is precious, but yet every day people who rather than enjoying their life at the moment are living in the past. They may be angry or worried about something that had occurred awhile ago, when they could have been focusing on what was happening right then and there.

We all need to learn how to accept ourselves, be at peace with ourselves and live in the moment.

— Courtney Monzon is an eighth-grader at Concordia Junior High School, and is the daughter of Jerad and Debra Monzon.

Sister Mary Julia leaves long legacy of loving care

EULOGIST: Sister Virginia Pearl, csj

VIGIL: April 20, 2010, at the Nazareth Motherhouse, Concordia

One day several years ago when we had been called because the signs seemed to indicate that Sister Mary Julia would die very soon, Alfreda Maley, one of our nurses, asked her if it was time to put out a sign-up sheet so the sisters could come and sit with her each hour.  Sister Mary Julia responded, “Oh not yet, because Jesus is sitting here visiting with me now.”

My gift to us tonight is to unfold for all of you glimpses of this valiant woman whom Jesus would come to visit, perhaps on a regular basis; glimpses of our own Sister to whom we are saying goodbye for now; for whom we are mourning.  But in the same breath, we are rejoicing over our beloved Sister Mary Julia’s death and resurrection calling us to live ever more deeply.

Maxim 24:  “To be utterly given to God by a holy self-surrender; Utterly for God by a love pure and completely unselfish; Utterly in God by a continuing effort to be more conscious of God’s presence; Utterly according to God by a will, a life, and everything conformed to God.”

Sister Mary Julia modeled this for us ever so deeply.  This eulogy tonight is a collaborative work of Sister Mary Esther Otter and me.

Several years back in the 1980s, Sister Mary Julia cornered me and asked if I would do her eulogy.  One day I read it back to Sister Mary Julia.  I have used almost verbatim what Sister wrote in her life story.  Sister responded to it, “Did I write that?  It is all so accurate.”

What I saw in Sister Mary Julia Stegeman was that she was utterly given to her God.  She was a valiant, strong woman, a woman unto herself.

I first met her when I was a student at Marymount College.  I was out walking one day, and Sister was pushing a cart full of laundry back to the Administration Building.  She was having a struggle because she was pushing the cart uphill and the wind was blowing.  I ran up to her and asked if I could help her push.  So together we pushed the cart of clean sheets through the hallway past the kitchen.  The aroma of freshly baked cookies was upon us.  The cook offered us some cookies.  The next day several of my friends joined Sister Mary Julia and me to help; they had heard about the cookies at the end of the trail.  Since then — for more than 50 years — I have loved those dark, sparkling eyes that were one of her trademarks.

Anna Magdalena was the second daughter of Cecelia Mumm from Gelena, Ill., and John Stegeman from Belleville, Iowa.  She was born Sept. 6, 1910.  Anna was baptized on Sept. 8, our Blessed Mother’s birthday.  She was welcomed by older sibling Theresa, who would become our Sister Rose Cecelia.  Other children were Mary Elizabeth, who would become our Sister Louis Marie, Helen, who would become Sister Ermenilda, a Benedictine in Clyde, Mo., and Edward Paul, born in 1915.  He died several days after birth.  They always knew Edward Paul was a saint.

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They were raised in Selden and Leoville, Kan. Sister Mary Julia would often say, “We had a good upbringing.  Both our parents were very spiritual and each had been in a religious order for a while.  We prayed the Litany of the Blessed Virgin before we went to school.  Mother knew it by heart.  We did a lot for the sisters and the church.  Sister Callista used to take us under her big cloak when it was cold.  She would go to the nearby church and teach us how to make a visit to the Blessed Sacrament.  Visiting Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament is still a great blessing for me.  Things went well in our family until I was 12 years old.”

The church in Leoville was only 8 years old.  One night there was combustion in the coal bin and the church burned down.  “Our papa was a carpenter and a blacksmith.  He had helped build the original church.  So Papa and we kids cleaned the bricks that had been burned, getting them ready to be used in the new church.  It was a cold, damp fall and winter that year.  Papa contracted pneumonia.  The doctor was a long way off.  Papa died nine days later.”

Sister Mary Julia went on to say, “This began a new chapter in our lives.  Our cousins, the Brueggmans, lived only a mile away, and they became a strong support for Mama and our family.  Mama took in washing and did the laundry for the church.  We girls took music lessons from the sisters and gave them milk in return.”

Anna Magdalene always wanted to be a sister.  So five years later on Valentine’s Day at the age of 17, she and her aunt, Mary Karls, came to Concordia to enter the Sisters of St. Joseph.  The trip took two days, so they stayed the night at Marymount.  Sister Mary Julia recalled, “Sister Renilda made all the clothes I needed to enter.  I was so thankful to have all I needed because we were poor.  The sisters were so good to us. Sister Clarice and Sister Rose Estelle joined my Aunt Mary (who became Sister Rose Ann) and me.  We were called “The Depression Band.”  The sisters in Leoville were my mentors. Sister De Pazzi made us learn our lessons, believe me.  But, I am most grateful for her faithfulness to duty.”

Sister Mary Julia’s first mission was in St. Peter where she cooked for six sisters.  The Abilene orphanage, St. Joseph Home, was her second mission for eight years.  She taught the girls how to iron their dresses and also helped the boys in the milk house with Sister Xavier and Sister Celeste.  Sister Xavier was gentle with the boys. Sister Marie Coleman’s brothers were there at this time.  They helped with the milking.

Next, Sister was missioned to the St. John’s Hospital in Salina to run the laundry.  She especially liked St. John’s because she could visit the new babies and other patients.  Atwood was Sister Mary Julia’s next mission.  She remembers the “dust bowl” storms during these years. Sister made a lot of friends, many of whom she still wrote to.

“Then I was called to Marymount for 29 years,” Sister said.  These were wonderful years. Sister cared for the “sunken garden” and worked in the laundry.  “The greatest joy of my life was the awesome privilege of becoming a Eucharistic minister at Marymount,” she recalled. “I was in charge of the chapel.  It kept me close to Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament.”  Students continue to remember how much Sister Mary Julia helped them when they were struggling spiritually or with their studies.

One remarked, “You did not need to get an appointment and wait for help.  Sister was always in the sunken garden or the chapel.  She was a special friend who always had time to visit with us.”

Sister’s profound faith in God was reflected to everyone at Marymount.

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Recently, at Melvin Hammeke’s funeral, Kay Schulte Hammeke from Hays asked me how Sister Mary Julia and Sister Redempta were.  Kay remarked that both of these women had made a beautiful mark on her life.

Sister Mary Julia was profoundly intelligent.  She was drawn to the library.  She read writings of Hildegard, Theresa and other mystics. This sustained her contemplative prayer.  Wherever the Stegeman sisters were, they helped begin and sustain a charismatic prayer group.

Sister’s next mission following Marymount was Grand Island, Neb.  She assisted the prayer groups, visited the nursing homes and hospital, and engaged in other pastoral work.  She assisted in the garden and helped can and prepare food for the winter.

“My last move was to our beloved Motherhouse.  I have cared for our greenhouse with Sister Mary Esther’s wonderful help.  I was her sight at times, and she was my hands and knees, tending the plants. Sister Francis Margaret Otter has taken loving care of my volumes of correspondence, for which I am most appreciative.  Both sisters have been angels of mercy for me.  Both will tell everyone how much my mother, Cecelia, was an angel of mercy for their family.”

Franz Gruber, who wrote the music to “Silent Night,” was Cecelia Mumm Stegeman’s great uncle who lived in Bavaria.  Sister Mary Julia was visiting with me one day about her funeral.  She said, “Even though Franz Gruber is my relative, if I die in July, don’t let them play ‘Silent Night’ for my funeral.”

The Stegeman and Otter families have been closely connected since childhood.  Sister Mary Esther has written a reflection that includes how their families helped each other:

“Sister is a jewel of a person, as you know.  I have enjoyed living near her here at the Motherhouse and working with her in the greenhouse.  She is so close to creation, to the people, and to the creatures great and small.  She is close to the sounds of nature, the changing seasons and everything associated with them.  She is in love with her God.

“I had learned of Sister in 1952 when I entered the convent.  My older brother had stayed with her mother, Cecelia, in Leoville for two years while attending high school.  My sister, Sister Francis Margaret, had stayed with her one year while attending her freshman year.  Mrs. Stegeman was a prayer-filled woman and had passed this gift onto her four daughters who had also joined the convent.  My brother spoke of their mother as being silhouetted by the window praying every day.  Prayer was just part of the family routine.  Sister Mary Julia was, to me, an image of that same prayerful woman whose small and dark joy filled eyes were quite similar to her mother’s.

“I began working with Sister Mary Julia when I came to the Motherhouse in 2001.  She worked in the greenhouse caring for plants that had been culled from the Motherhouse décor as well as starting fresh plants as slips or from seeds.  No plant was too sick or fragile to be given to compost.  Each plant was given ‘a chance.’  She would say, ‘God is that way with us. We have another chance … and another.’  On certain occasions, I would tease and say, ‘I think this one has tried very hard.  Her eyes twinkled and she’d say, ‘Isn’t it beautiful?  I knew this was a renewed reminder to place it in another area of the room.

“Her joyful spirit was renewed daily.  As we left the Motherhouse, she would often sing, ‘Oh what a beautiful morning, Everything’s going God’s way.’  It took us a longer time to arrive at the greenhouse than another might proceed.  Her 96-year-old body did demand a slower pace, but her young spirit noticed everything and everyone.  The moon that had not fully left vision’s view, the changing season, the temperature, dew, the sound of a train (until about two years ago when her hearing lessened), or a greeting to an employee who was also in the yard.  Sister Mary Julia knew no strangers.

“She had no nieces or nephews.  Her brother and sisters were deceased after 2001 when Sister Louis Marie died.  Sister was the only living member of her family.  Cousins were well known to her and often sought her striking memory for genealogy assistance.  She loved to be with her relatives and often attended special gatherings. She had an immense list of addresses and kept in touch with her own relatives and friends and those of her two sisters. She was mentor of a candidate who will begin the Agrégée formation soon.

“Yes, I treasure knowing Sister Mary Julia.  Having lost my central vision, I could assist with many areas of the greenhouse ministry of placing and replacing plants as well as misting, watering and filling buckets with water, etc., but it was Sister Mary Julia who often first noticed the plant pests or knew what type of illness a particular plant had when it was brought to the greenhouse for nursing.

“Sister loved God’s people as she loved her God.  As she de-cluttered her already frugal possessions, except the pictures and letters from her correspondence ministry, I knew she was in her continued joyful spirit, awaiting her cherished Rabboni.  How glad she would be to die with the thought of a welcome from thee.

“The greenhouse is full of plants given to her and us from friends, and a haven for those kept over the winter and many small starts from plants that had been invited for restart or considered for compost.  Sister Eileen Farley also worked with Sister Mary Julia and enjoyed the changing seasons and the new blossoms.  Sister Eileen kept the floors swept as well, and assisted with the annual thorough cleaning.  Both of us wanted Sister Mary Julia to continue her ministry to the plants as long as she could.  We will often remember Sister Mary Julia with her flowerpots and watering cans, especially the one that was her favorite, given to her for her 70th Jubilee by Sister Virginia Pearl.  It had a longer spout, allowing her to reach the plants with greater ease.

“Yes, her Lord in Heaven has surely greeted her, along with cherished friends and no doubt new acquaintances in whom her Lord is present.”

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We all know that Sister Generosa Walker and Sister Mary Julia were twins — both born on Sept. 6, 1910.  Sister Generosa, we will be with you 100-fold this coming Sept. 6, God willing.

Sister Mary Julia had said, “I have tried during my life to be the kind of Sister I had experienced in Leoville when I was a child.”  What a wonderful tribute to all of those sisters!

As we move into deeper refounding, Sister Mary Julia’s comments about “hope” come from Romans 5:5 “And this hope will not leave us disappointed because the love of God has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us.”  After Sister Louis Marie’s funeral, Sister Mary Julia was feeling like an orphan, and she told me that Jesus came to her and assured her she was not alone.

There is a quotation that says, “If the only prayer you ever say is, ‘Thank you, I am grateful,’ that will be enough.”

Sister Mary Julia had “grateful” engraved in her heart.  On every page of her memoires she said, “I am so grateful for my vocation, my community, my faith, my mission, my sisters and on and on.”

One of her favorite passages was Isaiah: 40:31 “They that wait upon The Lord shall renew their strength.”  Surely, dear Mary Julia, you have waited and waited and waited so patiently (most of the time).

This last week one night, Sister Ann Glatter and I were with Mary Julia and we were praying the rosary.  We were on the third mystery, The Descent of The Holy Spirit.  Sister had not been speaking for many hours. She rose up her arms and said, “At last, at last, at last” three times.  We both knew someone from heaven was letting her know that her waiting was almost over.  What strength are you now going to send all of us (who love you so deeply) as we move into deeper union and communion with each other and our Jesus?  Our hearts are open!

Another one of Sister Mary Julia’s favorite scriptures was Ephesians 2:10 “We are God’s work of art.”  Yes, Mary Julia, and you were a masterpiece glowing with love that just seemed to ooze out of your beautiful eyes, collecting any unrest, any need of peace, any hurt or injustice, and any need for condolence.  Your loving heart and arms had a way of holding the negative, and shining love and compassion into any given situation.

We all know that we are just getting glimpses of 100 years (well, almost) of loving, living and living lovingly.  I feel Sister Mary Julia’s life is like a gorgeous flower garden.  Her faith is the bedrock center.  The petals of her favorite flowers are:

• Her prayer
• Her poetry
• Her family
• Her friends
• Her sisters
• Her cousins
• The needy
• Her flowers
• Her prayer groups

Thank you for your love and the bouquet of gifts. I love you.

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Gabriel Award recognizes sisters’ documentary

The nationally televised documentary based on the research of Sisters Margaret Nacke and Mary Savoie has just been honored with a 2010 Gabriel Award from the Catholic Academy for Communication Arts Professionals.

Judy Zielinski, a Sister of St. Francis off Sylvania, Ohio, who was writer and producer of the documentary — titled “Interrupted Lives: Catholic Sisters Under European Communism” — received notice of the national award earlier this month. The 45th annual Gabriel Awards will be presented in New Orleans June 3.

“The Gabriel is, indeed, a prestigious award. It proclaims a value-centered view of society and humanity, and it raises our consciousness,” according to the letter from the Catholic Academy. “We are pleased to recognize your work for its embodiment of these ideals.”

The documentary was aired nationally as part of ABC’s “Vision and Values” series in September, and is available on DVD through the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, which provided a portion of the funding for the project. (For details or to order a copy, CLICK HERE.)

Sisters Mary and Margaret, both members of the Sisters of St. Joseph of Concordia, first went to Romania in 1993, as volunteers to help the Church in Eastern Europe after the fall of communism. Over the next decade in many visits, they branched out to other Eastern European countries and built relationships with many of the sisters who had survived behind the Iron Curtain.

In 2003, Sisters Mary and Margaret began serious research into the plight of those Catholic Sisters, eventually covering eight countries and the years spanning the rise of Stalin in Russia to the fall of the Berlin Wall. That included numerous trips to Eastern Europe, interviews with the women they came to call “Sister Survivors” and extensive academic study into the local and Church history.

In July 2006, they planned and facilitated a conference in Lviv, Ukraine, bringing together sisters from eight former communist countries. The goal was to examine fundamental values guiding those sisters who survived under communism and to explore ways those values can be integrated into the lives of American sisters.
As a result of the work done by Sisters Mary and Margaret, hundreds of testimonies, photographs, books and other documents have been collected and archived at Catholic Theological Union’s Bechtold Library in Chicago.

It was also in 2006 that Sisters Mary and Margaret hired NewGroup Media of South Bend, Ind. — which is where Sister Judy Zielinksi works as a writer and producer — to create a documentary of the story of the Sister Survivors.

A team from NewGroup, including Sister Judy and photographer Lynn King, and Sisters Mary and Margaret traveled together to Eastern Europe, mostly for introductions and to get a better sense of the story.

But once she began meeting the sisters who had survived, Sister Judy realized this was more than just a scouting trip.

“These were women who were fragile, many of whom were mature women at the end of World War II,” she said. “They were elderly, and many were in frail health. We knew this couldn’t wait.”

During that first trip, they interviewed and videotaped 42 Sister Survivors. They would eventually return for more interviews and taping.

After the documentary was completed, it was offered to the Interfaith Broadcast Coalition as national religious programming, and ABC selected it to offer its affiliates in September 2009.

Since then, Sisters Mary and Margaret have continued showings of the documentary around the country and have scheduled other educational programs to tell the stories of the Eastern European sisters.

The Gabriel Awards, which were first presented in 1965, are designed to honor works of excellence in film, network and cable television and radio programs. These include feature films and documentaries, entertainment and news programming, public service announcements, and stations which serve audiences through the positive, creative treatment of concerns to humankind. Categories for TV and radio include both English and Spanish language programs.

“Interrupted Lives” won in the category for nationally televised religious documentaries.

The award itself is a nine-inch silver angel mounted on a polished base of wood. Gabriel raises skyward a globe encircled by electrons to symbolize the
communication of God’s word to humanity. It is a salute to all those who strive for values-centered programming.

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