BRINGING CHRIST INTO PEOPLE’S LIVES

ASinsinawa Dominican sister who has dedicated her life to bringing Christ to young people in Catholic schools in Minnesota and five other states, and a Jesuit priest who has ministered in more than 60 countries through retreats, talks and teaching are highlighted as The Catholic Spirit celebrates those in consecrated life marking milestone anniversaries. In addition, the adjoining page lists men and women as provided by their religious communities who are celebrating jubilees this year and have ministered in the archdiocese. Thank you to all men and women in consecrated life!

To have us still in their presence almost 160 years later, it was a gift to have been there.

Jesuit Father Linn celebrates 50 years of priesthood with gratitude

By Barb Umberger

The Catholic Spirit

Sinsinawa Dominican Sister Mary Margaret Murphy said witnessing the religious sisters’ joy and hospitality served as inspiration for her own path.

Sister Mary Margaret said she “was raised at St. Albert the Great parish in south Minneapolis,” where she was baptized and attended its former elementary school. Its Catholic grade school was combined with four others in 1993 to create Risen Christ Catholic School. She later attended Academy of Holy Angels in Richfield. Since its beginning, Dominicans staffed St. Albert and it continues to be served by Dominican priests, Sister Mary Margaret said. When Sister Mary Margaret was attending grade school, Sinsinawa Dominican sisters taught there. “I found them to be very good teachers,” she said. “I only lived two blocks from the school, (and) often in the 1950s, they would go out for walks in twos,” she said. Sometimes the religious sisters stopped to chat with her family on their porch or in their yard, she said. “The sisters were friendly, very joyful and very hospitable,” she said.

That inspiration led to Sister Mary Margaret, 80, celebrating 60 years as a member of the Dominican Sisters of Sinsinawa, based in Sinsinawa, Wisconsin; Sister Mary Margaret moved to its motherhouse there two years ago. She has worked in the facility’s library and supports other retired sisters, saying, “you never really retire when you’re religious.”

Sister Mary Margaret served in the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis as principal of Most Holy Redeemer in Montgomery from 2002 to 2010 and as administrative assistant at Bethlehem Academy in Faribault from 2010 to 2021. Her religious order founded Bethlehem Academy in 1865, the order’s first mission away from the motherhouse, she said.

Her time at Bethlehem Academy was “filled with a lot of history,” as she interacted with people who represented the fourth generation of attendees, Sister Mary Margaret said. “To have us still in their presence almost 160 years later, it was a gift to have been there,” she said. She recalled “wonderful support” from school families and the community.

The idea of religious life had always been at the back of her mind, she said, and it was something “not totally foreign” to her family. “My father had brothers that were Christian Brothers in Ireland, and my mother had relatives that were clergy,” she said. Her teachers were “nice human beings, friendly ladies that, as a kid, I thought ‘I could do this,’” she said. “I decided after high school to give it a try.”

She went on to a 50-plus-year career in education in Illinois, Iowa, Nebraska, South Dakota and Texas, in addition to Minnesota, both teaching and in administration.

Looking back on her career, which included teaching math for many years, she said she loved when a child had “an aha moment” and said, “‘Oh, I finally get it.’ It’s like, ‘oh, thank God,’” she said.

One highlight of being a school administrator was mentoring new teachers, “helping them become stronger and … in some cases, more at ease with sharing their faith,” Sister Mary Margaret said. “Even though they weren’t necessarily teaching religion. But in a Catholic atmosphere of a Catholic school, it’s everywhere,” she said. “It has to be.”

Preaching is part of the Dominican charism, Sister Mary Margaret said, and preaching also takes place “in our lives.”

Asked what that looks like, she said treating everyone with respect, which in her life has included pastors, parents, students and teachers.

Citing her many experiences with various groups around the country, she said, “And that’s what I’ve tried to do, is to walk humbly, and justly and model that for people.”

By Joe Ruff The Catholic Spirit

Asked as he celebrates 50 years of priesthood what drew him to religious life and international retreat work that integrates physical, emotional and spiritual healing, Jesuit Father Matthew Linn didn’t hesitate.

“I just thought the happiest people in the world were people helping others,” he said. Still, the road to the priesthood from growing up in Minneapolis at Resurrection (now Our Lady of Peace) parish and school, with his parents, the late Leonard and Agnes May Linn, and his siblings, Dennis and Mary Ellen, wasn’t altogether straight. He first wanted to be a doctor. “But at the time I was pondering this, a cousin who was in residency in an emergency room urged me to consider how I might help keep people out of harm’s way in the first place,” he said.

“The majority of his emergency room patients were from abusive or addictive situations and so were constantly cycling in and out of the hospital. My doctor cousin said, ‘We are just patching up knife wounds, but they keep returning until we treat the hole in their soul.’”

Desiring to help others with that kind of healing, and hoping to live in community, the then-18-year-old Linn explored 12 religious orders. He landed on the Jesuits, a global order that encourages its members to be doctors, teachers or other specialists, as a means to helping others. He also was attracted by the Jesuits’ two-year novitiate, which helps those interested in formation look closely at their lives, so they discern how God — as Father Linn says, the Divine Lover — is moving them to share that love.

He entered the Jesuits in 1960 and was ordained a priest in 1973. Since 1970, he has taught courses and given retreats on healing in every state and in more than 60 countries. He has lived in 17 different Jesuit communities throughout his ministry. Now, he lives in the Markoe House Jesuit Community in Minneapolis. He helps train people as spiritual directors through Sacred Ground Center for Spirituality in St. Paul, following the tradition of St. Ignatius of Loyola, who helped found the Jesuits.

His brother, Dennis, entered the Jesuits two years after he did. But his brother was called to marriage. Now, together with Dennis and his wife, Sheila, who live in Colorado, they have formed Linn Ministries, giving talks and retreats on healing. They are co-authors of more than 20 books with titles that include “Healing of Memories,” “Healing the Greatest Hurt” and “Good Goats: Healing Our Image of God.” The books have been translated into about 25 languages. Their best seller, “Healing Life’s Hurts,” describes five stages of forgiveness based on Kubler-Ross’s five stages of grief: denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance. The Linns have found that the grieving process heals emotional wounds of even the deepest hurts. They learned this by giving healing retreats in war-torn countries like El Salvador, Honduras, Guatemala, South Africa and Northern Ireland. They found that only people who healed their grief through forgiveness and gratefully taking in new life recovered from trauma. Those who forgave let go of the pain, anger, and grief, and the grateful ones constantly found the Divine Lover giving new life, he said.

The Linns continue to give retreats, and as a priest in the Twin Cities, Father Linn, 80, also celebrates Masses and assists in area hospitals when other priests are not available. While pleased with the books he has helped write, he said he believes more important are the people he has helped and who have helped him by sharing their experiences. “My legacy is the people,” he said. “Books are fine. But I would hope that people would have found the Divine Lover and can now share that ... (so) love keeps radiating out in ever-expanding circles.”