The downing of Malaysian Airlines’ Flight MH17 over Ukraine touched the world of women religious last week in a very painful way.
A faithful life lost
Friends, colleagues and students of Sr. Philomene Tiernan have spent the last week grieving her death in the downing of Malaysian Airlines’ Flight MH17.
Tiernen was on her way back to Australia from a sabbatical in Europe, which included a trip to the Netherlands with her relatives to pay respects to an uncle whose plane was shot down in World War II.
Horror and disbelief gripped students at the Kincoppal-Rose Bay School in the Sydney suburbs where “Sister Phil” worked, reports The Australian.
Mourners and Tiernan’s fellow nuns from the Society of the Sacred Heart gathered at a prayer service, described by one who attended as an “outpouring of love.” Numerous church officials publicly paid tribute to Tiernan, who worked at the school well into her ‘70s.
“She was a quiet woman, yet very forceful and often her insights were very good,” Hobart Archbishop Julian Porteous told The Australian.
Sr. Aideen Kinlen, former provincial with the Society of the Sacred Heart in Ireland, told The Irish Independent that she was “dizzy in shock” at hearing the news of her close friend’s death.
Kinlen had just acted as Tiernan’s spiritual director on a retreat in Joigny, France, a trip to the birthplace of the founder of her religious order that fulfilled a lifelong ambition for her friend.
“She was an exceptionally warm person, kind and sensitive.” Sr. Kinlen said. “She had a great sense of humor and her goodness was in keeping with that.”
Family members released to the media a beloved poem that Tiernan used to counsel grieving people. It was written by Saint Madeleine Sophie Barat, founder of the Society of the Sacred Heart:
Think of stepping on the shore and finding it heaven,
Of taking hold of a hand and finding it God's hand,
Of breathing a new air and finding it celestial air,
Of being invigorated and finding it immortality,
Of passing from storm and tempest to an unknown
And waking and finding it home.
Busy in Texas
Earlier this month the Morrison County Record in Little Falls, Minn., detailed the exhaustive and heart-breaking work of 81-year-old Sr. Anita Jennissen, who is ministering to an increasing number of Central American refugees flooding into McAllen, Texas.
Jennissen, a member of the Franciscan Sisters of Little Falls, is spiritual director at Sacred Heart Parish in McAllen, about 10 miles from the Mexican border.
She told the Record that the people of McAllen consider the refugees their brothers and sisters in need and have opened their arms wide to receive them.
She’s spending a lot of time listening to the horrors that have driven the refugees, many of them children, to America.
“People say they are threatened by gangs; they live in fear – especially those from Honduras,” Jennissen said. “The refugees from Guatemala are very poor and look very malnourished. They come with what is on their backs. They all have a telephone number in their hands.”
Sacred Heart parish has given over its parking lot and parish hall for the refugees to use while waiting to leave town.
“I asked a Honduran woman who lives in McAllen in a not-very-nice place if she wouldn’t rather be back in Honduras,” Jennissen told the paper.
“She said that in Honduras the children were starving, that it’s much better here. It’s a matter of survival.”
Unsettled in Syracuse
Residents of Syracuse, N.Y., are divided on whether they want a former Franciscan convent there to be used as shelter for child immigrants awaiting deportation.
If the site is selected, 100 to 200 children are expected to be temporarily housed there, reports CNYCentral.com. The convent is one of six sites in New York state that federal officials are considering; only a few nationwide will be chosen.
“We’re in a wait and see pattern to see what the next step may be,” Rochelle Cassella, communications director for the Sisters of St. Francis of the Neumann Communities, told the Epoch Times. “There are still some tenants on the property. We’d like a time frame. We need to make arrangements.”
In recent days there have been demonstrations and public meetings where residents have sounded off on both sides of the issue.
The day after Syracuse mayor Stephanie Miner sent a letter to President Obama saying that her city would welcome the children, about 100 supporters and opponents of the move showed up at the former convent site.
Even if federal officials choose the location the final decision rests with the sisters, who tell the Epoch Times that they are talking and praying about what to do.
Anger in Bangladesh
Christians across Bangladesh this week protested and raised loud voices seeking swift justice for at least 50 men armed with knives and iron bars who assaulted two nuns there on July 8. The men reportedly stole cash and valuables worth nearly $13,000.
But it’s not just Christians who are outraged. Muslim and Hindu groups joined about 2,500 who protested in Rangpur, where the attack took place, reports UCA News. Groups of women religious held hands and lined major roads in rallies held in the capital city of Dhaka and other towns.
“No way can we accept this heinous attack on these dedicated people,” Fr. Anthony Sen, secretary of the Justice and Peace Commission in the Catholic diocese of Dinajpur, said at the Rangpur protest.
“The government must ensure that this kind of incident never takes place again and that the security of minorities should be guaranteed.”
Police officials say that 10 people have been arrested so far for the attack.
A happy birthday
The Trib Live was there this week when the Sisters of the Humility of Mary marked 150 years in Villa Maria, Penn.
The order began when 11 nuns and four orphans sailed to the United States from France in 1864, staking out a swampy area in Pennsylvania where they learned how to farm the land.
Last year the order reportedly turned down a lucrative offer from energy companies seeking natural gas rights on its forested, 761-acre campus, preferring instead to preserve the beautiful green space.
Over the decades the sisters’ work has evolved to meet the changing needs of the community. They have been nurses, teachers and provided housing for seniors, female veterans and others in need.
Some of the current 158 members are involved in fighting human trafficking; others hold an annual summer camp where they teach children how to garden.
Said Sr. Jeanne Thurin, 67, who has been in the order for 49 years: “It means longevity. It means a legacy. It means the holiness of the ground, and I’m privileged to share the holy ground with kids and adults.”
Hosanna for the hosts
The Gluten Free Travel Blog – which covers gluten-free dining in restaurants and reviews gluten-free foods – pointed its readers this month to the “low-gluten” communion hosts made by the Benedictine Sisters of Perpetual Adoration.
“What the Sisters of Perpetual Adoration have been able to do is find a company that produces wheat starch, which is wheat that has had most of its gluten removed,” the blog’s founder, Karen Broussard, wrote.
“After much trial-and-error, the sisters were able to make a wafer with water and this special wheat starch, which contains only the tiniest trace of wheat/gluten.”
The Center for Celiac Research has given the hosts its “blessing,” Brousard reports, which is good enough for her. She’s been buying the sisters’ hosts ever since her son, who has Celiac disease, made his first communion three years ago.
The Benedictines tweeted a link to the blog posting, writing: “Thanks to @gftravelsite for sharing story re: her son & our low #gluten #altar #breads. It warms our hearts to help.”
[Lisa Gutierrez is a reporter in Kansas City, Mo., who scans the non-NCR news every week for interesting pieces about sisters. She can be reached at lisa11gutierrez@gmail.com.]