CELEBRATING SISTERS

BY CATHI DOUGLAS

EVER SINCE THE DOMINICAN Sisters of Mission San Jose founded St. Catherine’s Academy in Anaheim in 1889, religious sisters and consecrated women have helped shape Orange County’s Catholic community.

As the Sisters of St. Joseph of Orange celebrate their 100th anniversary this year, it’s a fitting time to consider the many sisters and their ministries, the gifts they offer the faith and the faithful, and their distinctive missions.

“Certainly, the Sisters of St. Joseph, who moved here in 1922, have been foundational to the formation of the Diocese, and to the ministry of the Catholic Church in Orange County,” acknowledged Joan Patten, AO, delegate for Consecrated Life in the Diocese of Orange’s vocation office.

Altogether Patten said 26 different women’s religious communities and three secular institutes operate here, with each dedicated to vows of poverty, chastity and obedience as they permanently give their lives to God. Each community has a distinctive mission, or charism.

The Missionaries of Charity are the only contemplative order in the Diocese and recently marked their first-year anniversary in the Santa Ana motherhouse.

“A lot of religious communities are what we call active contemplatives, who take on apostolic work such as ministries in health care or education, and live lives of prayer as well,” she added.

Among the newer orders are the Buena Park-based Sisters of Perpetual Help, whose Bible Life Movement ministers to Korean Americans.

The Lovers of the Holy Cross work with the county’s Vietnamese Americans and first arrived in the Diocese at the request of founding Bishop William R. Johnson in 1978.

While their dedication to the Church is similar to that of male priests, women religious – with their innate sensitivity and receptiveness – are uniquely suited to ministries such as pastoral care, medical work and education, Patten explained.

“The sisters provide long-term steady faithfulness in our lives,” she said. “So many people talk about remembering their first-grade teacher. It’s amazing that sisters enter into people’s lives with love in a special way – it’s a beautiful witness to living out their spiritual maturity.”

While Catholics commonly see sisters teaching, ministering in hospitals and performing community outreach, she said, it’s fun to see a group of sisters doing something out of the ordinary, such as Norbertine sisters playing basketball or the Sisters of St. Clare helping with mission trips to India.

Possessing what St. Pope John Paul II called ‘the feminine genius,’ women are models of receptivity who teach us how to fully receive God in His love and grace, Patten said. “We need people who live in a way that shows us that Jesus is the fulfillment of every desire they have.” C

The Maria Ferrucci Catholic Family Living feature is intended to inspire families to live their faith in the way Maria Ferrucci did throughout her earthly life.

CONTINUED FROM PAGE 4 by explicitly racist and white supremacist ideology, following in the footsteps of previous racially motivated shootings in Charleston, South Carolina, Christchurch, New Zealand, El Paso, Texas, and others

The Washington Post gave the following descriptions of these dear African American lives lost: n Celestine Chaney, 65, cancer survivor, churchgoer, bingo player; n Roberta Drury, 32, beloved daughter and sister who moved home to help her brother fighting cancer; n Andre Mackniel, 53, who stopped at Tops to buy his 3-year-old son a birthday cake; n Katherine “Kat” Massey, 72, a writer and civil rights and education advocate; n Margus D. Morrison, 52, school bus aide survived by his wife, three children and a stepdaughter; n Heyward Patterson, 67, father and church deacon who fed the homeless and gave rides to neighbors; n Aaron Salter Jr., 55, retired police officer who died trying to stop the gunman; n Geraldine Talley, 62, expert baker and friend to everybody; n Ruth Whitfield, 86, beloved mother, grandmother and great-grandmother who was caretaker of her husband; n Pearl Young, 77, who ran the local food pantry and loved singing, dancing and her family.

Common denominators of these two tragedies include racism – whether internationally based conflicts or homegrown and pernicious white nationalism – and guns.

Recently, in Fratelli tutti, Pope Francis warns that “instances of a myopic, extremist, resentful and aggressive nationalism are on the rise.” He also refers to Pope Saint John XXIII’s “conviction that the arguments for peace are stronger than any calculation of particular interests and confidence in the use of weaponry.” Most recently, Francis expressed his “heart shattered over the massacre at the elementary school in Texas,” offered prayers, and then said: “It is time to say, ‘Enough!’ to the indiscriminate trafficking of guns. Let’s all work to ensure that such tragedies never happen again.”

In denouncing both gun violence and racism, Pope Francis is echoing Pope Saint John Paul II. For example, on the latter, twenty years ago John Paul II said: “Marked by the worrying resurgence of aggressive nationalism, ethnic violence and widespread phenomena of racial discrimination, human dignity has often been seriously threatened. Every upright conscience cannot but decisively condemn any racism, no matter in what heart or place it is found.”

“Unfortunately,” he said, “it emerges in ever new and unexpected ways, offending and degrading the human family. Racism is a sin that constitutes a serious offence against God….To oppose racism we must practice the culture of reciprocal acceptance, recognizing in every man and woman a brother or sister with whom we walk in solidarity and peace” (Angelus, August 26, 2001).

John Paul II was so committed to this end that his Delegation at the United Nations in January of 2002 called for “a clear programme to fight racism,” saying:

“The fight against racism is urgent. It must be explicit and direct. Too often in history, uncritical societies have stood by inactive as new signs of racism raised their head. If we are not alert, hatred and racial intolerance can reappear in any society, no matter how advanced it may consider itself.”

“Such a programme must begin at the level of national legislation and practice… [addressing] in particular the situation of refugees and migrants, who are often victims of discrimination. It must address the situation of indigenous peoples. It must address minority groupings.

“Legislation must be accompanied by education. Education on racial tolerance must be a normal part of the educational programmes for children at all levels. The family, the basic social unit of soci- ety, must be the first school of openness and acceptance of others. Government agencies may never justify racial profiling and the mass media must be alert to avoid any type of stereotyping of persons on a racial basis.

“In particular, the Holy See would like to address the question of racism and religious intolerance…”

Notwithstanding forms of intolerance that must be addressed, the Holy See concludes: “Religion, above all, can be a strong force for that individual and collective conversion of hearts, without which hatred, intolerance and exclusion will never be eliminated. The fight against racism requires a concerted international programme. But the fight against racism begins in the heart of each of us, and in the collective historical memory of our communities. The fight against racism requires a personal change of heart. It requires that “healing of memories”, that forgiveness for which Pope John Paul II called in his last Message for the World Day of Peace [2002].”

We each must take up this personal challenge and change of heart and grow our empathy and solidarity with one another. From acts of terror like those in Buffalo, Laguna Woods, or Uvalde to the outrageous rhetoric and reactions on cable news, online, or in state or congressional halls, we are traumatized again and again, especially African American, Latino, and Asian American brothers and sisters.

As Catholics we remember those killed doing the most regular, everyday things, shopping for groceries, talking on the cell phone with family, visiting an establishment in their neighborhood, or going to church, learning in their classrooms, only to be met by the worst forms of violence simply because of what they represent to the twisted ideologies of white supremacy and nationalism or to other forms of numbed indifference.

“Justice for black people,” wrote Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in 1969, “will not flow into this society merely from court decisions nor from fountains of political oratory…White America must recognize that justice for black people cannot be achieved without radical changes in the structure of our society.” “True peace,” he said elsewhere, “is not merely the absence of tension; it is the presence of justice.”

My heart goes out to my African American, Latino, and Asian American sisters and brothers and my desire is for us as a Church to make a common commitment to denounce racism in all its forms and the proliferation of guns and to work instead in solidarity for justice. This justice is required from the very beginning of life and throughout all of life toward its end and includes the abolition of the death penalty (if murder is wrong, it’s wrong for everyone).

The words of a recent Gospel reading from John come to mind:

The words of a recent Gospel reading from John come to mind:

Do not let your hearts be troubled or afraid.

You heard me tell you, ‘I am going away and I will come back to you.’

If you loved me, you would rejoice that I am going to the Father; for the Father is greater than I.

Given challenges in front of us it’s often hard not to be troubled or afraid. Yet we can take comfort in the great cloud of witnesses gone before us in Jesus – for example, the six Americans of African descent with open causes for sainthood – and answer the call to do justice, love goodness, and walk humbly with our God (Micah 6:8).

Venerable Pierre Toussaint, Servant of God Mary Elizabeth Lange, Venerable Henriette DeLille, Servant of God Julia Greeley, Venerable Augustus Tolton, Servant of God Thea Bowman, Pray for us. C