SPIRITOFST.FRANCIS | FOLLOWERS OF ST. FRANCIS
By Janice Lane Palko
T
Drawn to Timeless Franciscan Values
Every Monday and Wednesday, a group of sisters (Sister Sharon Havelak is third from the left) and local activists gather on the corner of Sylvania Franciscan Motherhouse property to support antidiscrimination efforts. Since the death of George Floyd in 2020, they gather every week, rain or shine. 12 • March 2022 | StAnthonyMessenger.org
ALL PHOTOS COURTESY OF SISTER SHARON HAVELAK/SYLVANIA FRANCISCANS’ ARCHIVES
hroughout history there have been men and women A CHOICE TO MAKE who, from birth, have been singled out for a life of serAlthough it seemed she was destined for a life with the vice and devotion to God. Such was the case with John the Sylvania Franciscans, Sister Sharon, like those others before Baptist, the prophet Samuel, and our Blessed Mother with her, had to consciously choose to follow God’s will for her. “I her Immaculate Conception. Although much too modknew I couldn’t rely on others’ expectations of me; I had to est to include herself among such company, freely commit to my vocation,” she says. Sister Sharon Havelak, OSF, a member of the Aspiring to become a Sister of St. Francis, Sylvania Franciscans (Sylvania, Ohio), shares she briefly attended St. Clare Academy in a similar life experience. Sylvania, Ohio. She later returned to Sylvania Sister Sharon, who is 74, was born preand professed her final vows in 1973. “Early in maturely in Northeast Minneapolis. “My my novitiate after Vatican II, things were very aunt, Sister Marie Paul, a Sylvania Franciscan, unsettled with many leaving the convent, and decided that, if I survived, I would eventually I had to evaluate what I wanted to do,” says join her in the convent,” says Sister Sharon, Sister Sharon. “Through prayer and much who was born the second oldest of five soul-searching, I realized that I would take children in a devoutly Catholic family. Her me, with my strengths and weaknesses, wheraunt’s proclamation stuck with her. “I was the ever I went, and life outside of the convent one deemed for a vocation and the one who would be just as complicated, and so I chose received a nun doll as a present for her first to honor my commitment.” Communion,” she says with a laugh. From 1968 to 1977, she taught grade Sister Sharon Havelak, OSF Joining the sisters was always in the back of school, then became a member of Trinity Sister Sharon’s mind, but her vocation began House of Prayer. After working various odd to take shape when she was in the sixth grade. She attended jobs, “I started teaching art part-time and then went back to Immaculate Conception School where Sylvania Franciscan college to get a master’s degree in art from Bowling Green Sisters were her teachers. “Sister Mary Ann, the vocation State University,” she says. “For a time, I taught studio art and minister, traveled to Minneapolis to talk to our class about art history at the university level.” joining the sisters. I don’t remember much of what she said, but I do remember her showing us slides of the motherhouse PUTTING CREATIVITY TO USE grounds with all these beautiful pine trees and thinking, In 2000, Sister Sharon was elected to the congregation’s That’s my home! That feeling remained with me.” leadership, serving for the next eight years. Since then, she
