Jill’s Reception into the Novitiate
Friends and food- a great combination
- Jill, Norm Dixon, SJ, presider, and Evie Craig, homilist
Jill with her parents, Lois and Dick
- Mary Fran Gilleran, IHM president, welcomes Jill into the community as a Novice.
The other day I wrote about how to become an IHM Sister, but when it comes to Novitiate a story is much more revelatory than just facts. On August 24 Jill Kress was officially received as a Novice into the IHM community during a Mass celebrated by Norm Dixon, SJ. The choir from Gesu parish in Detroit and their wonderful director, Carl Clendenning provided the music. Jill had been a member of the choir. Their love for her and hers for them was obvious. The chapel was filled with family, friends, IHM sisters and Associates. The spirit that day defies description. Warmth, excitement, gratitude for this gifted young woman, pride of friends and family. Hopefully these pictures will give some idea of the celebration.
Jill's Gesu choir friends
A partial view of the gang that came to celebrate
Add comment September 10, 2008
How Do I Become an IHM?
I can’t resist saying facetiously that it takes a lifetime to become an IHM. No IHM is a finished product. Each of us is constantly being called anew to deeper and more genuine living of IHM life. But what about persons just thinking of religious life as an IHM sister?
Although there are some standard steps for all persons pursuing vowed religious life as an IHM, each person’s process is particular to her. Here are the broad strokes:
- You begin your exploration by talking with the Vocation Director about your journey. She will listen with you to how God is calling you. Then you will need to get to know us (to hang out with us) to see if our values, our spirit are a fit for you, so the Vocation director will invite you to IHM events and provide opportunities to meet small groups of sisters informally. Throughout your time of exploration she will walk with you and help you listen to what God is saying through your life.
- After your inquiry you submit a written application and then interview with the Admissions Board. Board members prayerfully discern your readiness and aptitude for membership and approve you for candidacy.
- After you have been accepted as a candidate you spend the first year of formation continuing to support yourself, but meeting regularly with the Candidate Director, getting to know more sisters, coming to community activities, and continuing vocation discernment through prayer and spiritual direction. As the year progresses you will move into an IHM house and begin living in community.
- Two years of novitiate follow. The first year is more contemplative, with emphasis on prayer, personal growth, theological studies, learning the history and culture of the community, and getting to know the elder members through volunteer service. The second year, the ministerial year, is a time to explore and prepare for future ministry as a vowed member.
- The novitiate ends with the first profession of vows. Fro three years, you live as a vowed religious. with full accountability as a member. This time of preparation and insight culminates in final vows. And then, like all of us, you continue each day to become a fuller, more genuine IHM.
Add comment September 2, 2008
Where was my head?
When I received a comment a while ago that said, “Good job, Sr. Jill” I realized that I had neglected to give sufficient information about who is writing this blog and why. I had written about Sr. Jill, but I’m not Sr. Jill. I’m Sr. Mary Bea Keeley, IHM, Vocation/Formation Director for the IHMs. And it’s many months later that I’m attending to the gap. Yikes! I had received very bad news about my sister– my best friend– in late January that knocked the wind out of me. Since then we’ve been through both times of hope and times of pain. However, I’ve regained excitement about blogging, so here we go!
Add comment August 29, 2008
Nun in Mexico
Sister Tonia's students working in organic garden
What’s an IHM nun doing with a bunch of teens and preteens in an organic garden in Juarez, Mexico? Much more than growing vegetables! Besides working with young people on the daunting challenge of farming organically in the intense heat of Juarez, Sister Tonia is teaching them how to live Gospel ways of relating to peers and others. Many of these children have grown up surrounded by violence, particularly men’s disrespectful treatment of women. So even during break time the lessons continue. Sister and the students play a nonviolent form of football and Sister is the goalie!!
Sister Antonia is goalie for youth group football
As time for profession of vows neared it seemed most fitting that she would pronounce her vows of celibacy, poverty, and obedience on her native soil. So, her Profession Mass was celebrated in the parish where she had grown up, ministered and first felt the call to religious life. On February 5, 2006 Sr. Tonia professed her vows as an IHM sister with her family and friends in a joyous celebration in her church in Juarez. A week before, she had celebrated her commitment among all her new sisters at a Mass in the Motherhouse chapel where the feeling of pride and connection was palpable. This summer when she visited Monroe for the IHM community days she said that each time she visits she feels an even greater sense of belonging, as well as gratitude for being a member of this IHM community.
“Tune in” again to read about some other things Sr. Tonia is doing.
Add comment August 26, 2008
Great Conversation
This will just be a quickie, but when I see a good thing, I have to share it. Have you checked out Sister Julie’s blog, anunslife, today? On it Fr. James Martin, SJ, author of My Life With the Saints and A Jesuit Off Broadway is having a running conversation about discernment and religious life. There are some really good questions, and Father Martin’s responses are down to earth and solid. I think you’ll find his insights about discernment very helpful. Happy blogging!
1 comment June 3, 2008
Meet Sister Pat Nagle
Sister Patricia Nagle, IHM, is an activist dedicated to the creation of a new world order.
As educator and consultant for Earth Home Ministries in Portland, Ore., her ministry is to connect, inform and empower people and institutions to care for Earth, especially with regard to climate change.
“Earth’s atmosphere encompasses all people, creatures and habitats,” Sister Pat says. “The response to global climate change must reflect our interdependence and responsibility to the whole of life. This issue is really about the future of God’s creation.”
Sister Pat is a native of the Pacific Northwest, and it was “The Columbia River Pastoral Letter,” an international pastoral letter by the Catholic bishops within the Columbia River watershed, that drew her back to Portland about four years ago.
Sister Pat’s work with Earth Home Ministries is interwoven with her involvement with other organizations working to slow global warming, including the Interfaith Network for Earth Concerns and Oregon Interfaith Power and Light (OIPL).
“We are morally responsible for the effects of global warming,” Sister Pat says emphatically. “We have an opportunity in this moment to make a difference. Global warming disproportionately affects the most vulnerable.
“If we are to take the Gospel invitation to ‘love your neighbor’ seriously, we must take action.”
For Sister Pat, that action has taken many forms. She participated in the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Montreal in 2005 and has testified before the governor of Oregon and the Oregon State Legislature regarding climate change. With colleagues at OIPL she provides workshops on energy conservation and effective activism in the political arena.
“In my ministry we encourage communities from all faith traditions to sign on to an energy stewardship covenant,” she states. ”The congregations agree to do something concrete, and we give them a goal to reduce their energy use by 20 percent of 2005 levels by the year 2015 or sooner.
“With OIPL, we are currently working on a creative financing program that will make it possible for congregations interested in solar energy to install such systems. This will involve connecting congregations with a third party who purchases, installs and maintains the solar panels. The third party and the congregations establish a loan repayment schedule based in part on the cost savings.”
In addition to working on issues related to climate change, Sister Pat is also active with the Interfaith Food and Farm Partnership.
“Farmers partner with faith communities to bring locally grown flowers and produce to the community. It is a way strengthening urban and rural relationships while reducing energy consumption involved in the transportation of produce.”
For Sister Pat, all of her ministry is about accepting our responsibility to be co-creators of a more just, sustainable, compassionate Earth community.
Add comment May 21, 2008
Vocation Confusion?
Can you identify at all with these questions? “How do I know if I have a vocation to be a sister?” and ”If I do have a religious vocation, where to?” Often the questions are followed by, “I pray to God to lead me, but then I keep going around and around in my head and never get any clearer about it.” If this sounds familiar, you’re not alone! I have something that I think will help you. We just put a Virtual Discernment Retreat on our website. It’s based on St. Ignatius Loyola’s “Rules for Discernment,” and I think you’ll find it will help. Let me know. http://www.ihmsisters.org/www/Ways_of_Joining_Us/virtualdiscernmentretreat.asp
Add comment May 14, 2008
Do Sisters fall in love?
Last week a group of delightful young women from Marian High School visited the Motherhouse to learn about Sisters. We sat in little groups composed of Sisters and students who had brainstormed in their class and were ready with their questions as soon as we sat down. The same thing happened in each group I sat with. Almost immediately they jumped to the questions they really wanted to ask. “Have you ever been in love?” “Have you ever had sex?” The sisters gave very honest answers. One shared that she had really liked “the boys,” but it had only been “puppy love.” Another mentioned feeling a tug at her heart when she’s with her friends who have grandchildren, and another shared her struggle when she fell in love after she had entered religious life. Underlying the sisters’ stories was the sense that each had prayed with her feelings and discovered that this one love relationship was not what she was meant for. There was something missing.
As I prayed the next morning I realized that those young women had put their finger on the central question, love. Ultimately I guess I can only answer it for myself. Some other sisters may want to share their thoughts on the girls’ questions. Do I give up loving? No. Do I give up physical intimacy? Yes. Am I happy? Oh yes. How do I do this? From the beginning of religious life we are encouraged and led to prayer. As I have grown in prayer I have come to experience God at my very core, knowing and accepting me completely, and inviting me into deeper realtionship. In this is joy and peace. Don’t get me wrong. There are other supports in religious life, like good friends, passion for mission and community support, but this one is the key.
Thanks, girls, for asking the really big questions.
Add comment March 5, 2008
Retreating is advancing
I’ve just returned from a wonderful week of retreat. The bad news is that I haven’t blogged for over two weeks– a blogger sin! After retreat I took a detour to New Jersey because my sister has been diagnosed with cancer, and that has made focus quite difficult. The good news, however is that going on retreat each year is a treasured perk of religious life, and again this year the time of reflection led me to my center where God is. Clarities come in the quiet there. Ahhhh!
Early in religious formation, making a retreat sounded more like a jail sentence than a perk. Not to talk for a week seemed impossible. However, as I matured in my sense of self, the opportunity for reflection became precious. A significant moment in that shift came when I discovered Anne Morrow Lindbergh’s little book, Gift from the Sea: An Answer to the Conflicts in Our Lives. I remember sitting on a beautiful rolling hill at Immaculata College and devouring the book. She wrote these pages during a brief vacation at the seashore where she wanted to examine the patterns of her life. However, her search for meaning in her life has spoken powerfully to other seekers for years. If you haven’t read the book, I highly recommend it. The insight that a woman needs solitude to find the essence of her life was Anne’s ”gift” to me, a gift that has grown deeper with each year’s retreat.
There is no way we can advance without retreating!
Add comment February 27, 2008
Meet Sister Pat
“Casa Hope,” in Houston, Texas, is a haven for children in crisis through abuse, neglect or life-threatening illnesses such as AIDS.
Patricia (Helen Mary) Aseltyne, IHM, has ministered at this licensed foster care and adoption agency for more than 12 years. She was instrumental in establishing Casa Hope’s Hospice House and has been a house parent for Casa’s family-based homes. Sister Pat has also served as caregiver to infants with AIDS and foster mother to Baby Rosa, who died of the disease at age 3.
“So many of Casa’s families are touched by AIDS with its stigma and isolation,” Sister Pat notes. “Part of my role has been to let the children and families know they’re not alone, either by caring for a child in need or by helping with little things to make a family more comfortable, such as a bus pass or paying a utility bill.”
Sister Pat currently provides aftercare/outreach when children are discharged from Casa and return to their families.
“Within a month of a child’s discharge, I meet with the family to see how things are going,” she says. “I try to affirm the parents for the positive things they’re doing, but my priority at all times is to be sure the child is safe.
“The outreach program has been extremely successful. Many parents ask that it be extended beyond the six-month mandatory visit schedule,” she asserts.
Sister Pat’s outreach efforts have also included working with victims of Hurricane Katrina who fled to Houston from New Orleans.
“I’m still working with a family that’s in a real ‘catch-22,’” she notes. “The grandparents are caring for seven children and are still in desperate need of social services. They can’t access those services because no one in the family has any identification. We’re trying to help them with the tangle of paperwork and legal demands.”
Although the caseload continues to grow, Sister Pat says that everyone involved with Casa Hope is intent on helping those who call on them. “It’s a privilege,” she says simply.
1 comment February 4, 2008
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