Followers of St. Francis

Running toward God

Sister Agnes Thérèse’s current ministry is with Urban Mission in Steubenville, Ohio. Above, she works at a drive-through food giveaway in October 2020. With the rosary clutched in her right hand, Sister Agnes Thérèse powers through the Cleveland Marathon in May 2019.

Becoming a sister was definitely not on Sister Agnes Thérèse Davis’ radar. Sister Agnes, who is 32 and a member of the community of Franciscan Sisters TOR of Penance of the Sorrowful Mother in Toronto, Ohio, grew up in New Hampshire and was baptized Emily Davis into the Lutheran faith, where her father was an elder. “Unbeknownst to us, my mother was stealthily studying about becoming a Roman Catholic and converted in 1998,” she says. “She began leaving Catholic reading material around, and I started reading some of it, especially about the Eucharist and the history of the Church. I remember thinking this is so obviously true. It was my choice to convert.”

Sister Agnes, who converted in 2002 at the age of 14, attended public school and was also homeschooled for a time. She attended Franciscan University in Steubenville, Ohio, earning degrees in Spanish and philosophy. It was while she was at Franciscan that her call to the religious life began. “Praying was an expectation in the Lutheran Church,” she says, “but once I became a Catholic, I started leading a sacramental life—going to Mass and confession—but I was not leading a prayerful life.”

Sister Agnes, who is a runner, was spurred to become more prayerful by a friend. “I had been running regularly with a classmate who would sometimes say she didn’t have time to run because she ‘had to pray,’” Sister Agnes says. “I thought that was a terrible excuse, and she challenged me to spend an hour a day in prayer. It was what I needed. I knew God was good; I knew God loved me. I knew he made me for a purpose, and I realized that I need to pray to spend time with the truth. The truth is a person, and I fell in love with him.”

After graduation, Sister Agnes taught for a year, but the call to religious life was growing stronger, and she did a Come and See visit with the Dominican sisters in Nashville. She also investigated the Franciscan Sisters. After visiting with the TORs, she knew that she was called to their community. “I felt like I had come home when I visited them,” she recalls. “I enjoyed their spirit of freedom and simplicity. I remember when I was visiting and I was helping one of the sisters wash cars, I asked, ‘How do the sisters wash cars?’ She looked at me and asked, ‘How do you wash a car?’ The Dominicans were more regimented, and I have a tendency to be that way, so I think the Franciscan spirit is just what I needed.”

MAKING A CASE FOR RELIGIOUS LIFE

Sister Agnes entered the community in 2010. “Since we don’t have professional careers, some [people], when I told them I was going to become a sister, felt I was wasting my gifts,” she says. “It was a bit of an adjustment for my parents. They had to mourn the dreams that they had for me and for the loss of unborn grandchildren.”

Eventually, her family came around to the idea of her

joining a religious community. “In some ways, it was good that my desire to enter the TORs wasn’t so well received at the time,” Sister Agnes recalls. “I tend to do things to make people happy, and this didn’t. So, this was a gift. It strengthened my faith and my conviction that this is what I was called to do.”

Sister Agnes took permanent vows in 2017 and has served in internal ministries: coordinating the motherhouse kitchen and working in mission advancement, plus teaching postulant classes and giving parish missions. She has also ministered in downtown Steubenville, working with the materially poor. “We used to run a thrift store and soup kitchen, but our thrift store closed and—with the pandemic—the soup kitchen has been on hiatus,” she says. “I have been serving on an ecumenical board of a Methodist-run ministry that operates a homeless shelter, thrift store, and soup kitchen in Steubenville, and another sister and I are now assigned to collaborate with them in their efforts downtown.” Sister Agnes and her fellow sisters also spend time on the streets praying with people and just making their presence known and being available to help. “Some people think that sisters are aloof, that we’re a subspecies of humans, but we have the same hopes, dreams, and struggles as everyone else,” she points out. “We just try to live the Gospel and bring the love of God to others.”

Sister Agnes still enjoys running, and she and another sister ran the Cleveland Marathon in 2019. “We have an exercise habit—a short veil, white polo shirt, and culottes,” she says. “I couldn’t believe when we were running the marathon how happy people were to see us out on the road running with them. But I like to think that’s what we’re called to do. We’re running with everyone.”

ST. ANTHONY BREAD

The National Shrine of St. Anthony is located in Cincinnati, Ohio. Consecrated in 1889, it includes a first-class relic of St. Anthony and serves as a center for daily prayer and contemplation.

The Franciscan friars minister from the shrine. To help them in their work among the poor, you may send a monetary offering called St. Anthony Bread. Make checks or money orders payable to “Franciscans” and mail to the address below.

Every Tuesday, a Mass is offered for benefactors and petitioners at the shrine. To seek St. Anthony’s intercession, mail your petition to the address below. Petitions are taken to the shrine each week.

viSit our webSite to:

StAnthony.org

mAil poStAl communicAtionS to: St. Anthony Bread 1615 Vine St. Cincinnati, OH 45202-6498