Week honors women religious for selfless, prayerful service

their service and their sacrifices.

In the diocese, there are 19 women religious communities who serve in numerous ways, including staffing schools, forming youth and adults in the faith, providing healthcare to the aged and infirm, assisting with retreats, and serving in parishes and diocesan offices.

To shine a spotlight on the Catholic Sisters in the diocese, “The Catholic Spirit” interviewed Christian Charity Sister Anna Nguyen, diocesan Delegate for Religious. “I am constantly in awe and I feel so blessed to have an opportunity to serve our religious Sisters,” said Sister Anna

She added that reading the February issue of “The Catholic Spirit,” she “felt proud to be a Catholic Sister along with the 20 jubilarians featured in the paper. (One Sister was unable to be interviewed because she had returned to her native Poland to celebrate.)

Each of the Sisters celebrating a significant milestone shared heartwarming stories of their vocation and how it led to lives filled with blessings and graces.

Sister Anna noted that the paper gave a glimpse into the lives of other Sisters, too. Jesus Our Hope Sister Anna Palka, a campus minister at the Catholic Center at Rutgers, New Brunswick, was included in a photo montage of pro-life advocates who participated in the March for Life in Washington D.C. Mercy Sister Lisa D. Gambacorto, directress, Mount Saint Mary Academy, Watchung, posed in a photo with four of the school’s student athletes who are to compete at Catholic colleges after graduation. Sister Anna said,

Saying Catholic Sisters impact the lives they serve, Sister Anna pointed to the story in “The Catholic Spirit,” on Project Homeless Connect and Mercy Sister M. Michaelita Popovice, Catholic Charities, Diocese of Metuchen Program Director for Warren Basic Material Needs. She said a colleague of Sister Michaelita told her clients feel her love. “For someone to be in need, to be scared and perhaps not even knowing the language, to walk into Sister Michaelita’s center and feel loved is impactful,” Sister Anna said.

The last photo Sister Anna mentioned was Bishop James F. Checchio on a pastoral visit to the Carmel of Mary Immaculate and St. Mary Magdalen, Flemington, where he posed with two novices. The Carmelites, Sister Anna said, live contemplative lives of prayer and sacrifice, their charism.

“Each religious community’s charism is the gift of the Holy Spirit that through prayer and discernment the founder or foundress of the order gives to us,” Sister Anna said. “Our charism gives us purpose. It characterizes our life, our ministry, our existence, everything about us speaks to that charism,” she explained.

“There are exceptional times, however, that lead Catholic Sisters to step beyond their mission, their charism,” Sister Anna said. These are the times when, “I see heroism and sacrifices.”

“The Little Servant Sisters of the Immaculate Conception (LSIC), for instance, care for the sick and infirm in their Woodbridge center but they also have Sisters in Poland, Ukraine, Russia and Siberia,.” she added.

When Russia invaded Ukraine a year ago, these Sisters had an opportunity to evacuate to a safer location but chose to stay, sacrificing their own safety. Instead of leaving, they opened their convents and welcomed refugees. They said “yes” to following the Lord in this way, said Sister Anna.

She added other religious communities have also opened their convents to refugees from the war. Her community, Sisters of Christian Charity, took in a group of refugees that made it to Germany, and the Felician Sisters have taken in refugees in Poland.

Catholic Sisters Week, Sister Anna said, “is also a time to consider the spirituality of Catholic Sisters.”

“Spirituality is the soul of religious life with God at the center. It is the center of each congregation. It is the ministry of all religioius communities," Sister Anna said. In 2016, at the end of the Year for photos by Chris Donahue, Tiffany Workman, Sister Leila Braganza, LSIC and courtesy of Brother Patrick Reilly, director, Catholic Center at Rutgers.

Top left, (from left) Sister Jadwiga Chlus, Sister Irene Lisowska and Sister Mary Ann Marshall, members of the Little Servant Sisters of the Immaculate Conception, pray at Mass celebrated as part of the 100th anniversary of Our Lady of Lourdes Parish, Milltown, where the Sisters used to operate its now-closed parochial school. Top center, Jesus Our Hope Sister Anna Palka is shown at the March for Life in Washington, D.C. Bottom center, Mercy Sister M. Michaelita Popovice, Program Director for Catholic Charities' Warren Basic Material Needs, talks with a client. Right, Mother Elizabeth, Superior, LSIC, holds a poster showing members of her community with refugees in the Ukraine.

Consecrated Life, Pope Francis said that "the marrow of consecrated life is prayer.” Two years later the Holy Father said that for the consecrated person prayer is a return to the meeting with the Lord in which they were called by him. “Prayer in the consecrated life,” he stressed, “is the air which makes us breathe that call, renew that call.”

Besides focusing on mission and spirituality, Catholic Sisters Week also stresses building community. “Praying, working, serving day in and day out, Catholic Sisters build up the Kingdom of

God,” Sister Anna said. “We take vows to live in community so that we can be a witness to the Gospel collectively and serve the Church and for that to continue to the end of time we need to build it up so that our witnessing to the Gospel, our ministry to the Church could continue.

“Catholic Sisters have contributed much to the history of women,” she added. “And I feel that Catholic Sisters deserve to be recognized for their service and their sacrifices.”

Joanne Ward serves as adviser to “The Catholic Spirit.”