The anguish over the horrific murders of three women religious in Africa this week reached all the way to Rome. But amid the heartbreak are heartwarming stories of sisters doing what they do – saving the world.
Green acres
Sr. Sharon Zayac and her Dominican colleagues near Springfield, Ill. are sitting on a great 111-acre secret.
The women live at and operate Jubilee Farm, a spirituality and ecology center where they raise llamas and alpacas, grow chemical-free fruit and vegetables, and offer walking trails, a labyrinth and a retreat house to the public.
The goal of their unique ministry is to help people understand their relationship with the earth and learn how to live greener lives.
“A lot of people know that we’re here, but we still get people who say ‘Oh, I never heard of you,” Zayac told me.
Those who are unfamiliar with the women’s work will get a chance to see it first-hand on Sept. 27 during the farm’s annual Fall Festival, its biggest fundraiser.
In a preview of the event, Zayac told The State Journal-Register in Springfield that since the Dominicans bought the farm in 1999, people have become much more aware of and interested in environmental issues.
“When I talk now about our connection to the land and creation and living in right responsibility, there is more [affirmative] head-nodding,” she told the paper. “I don't get as much [static] about climate change and genetically modified foods.”
Last year more than 400 people attended, helping the sisters raise about $1,500. The women are hoping for bigger crowds this year.
I told Zayac we’d help to share the “secret.”
Another brave woman
Courage is the word that sprang to mind when reading the Irish Independent’s story about Sr. Christine Frost, 77, whose recent actions are being called fearless.
The Irish sister from Limerick works in a poor area of East London. She became something of a celebrity last month when she removed a flag in the neighborhood associated with the fanatical Islamic State, ISIS.
Frost worried that the flag, similar to ones in recent videos showing ISIS murdering journalists, would incite tension in the area.
She told one British newspaper that she is not anti-Islamic and has worked tirelessly to showcase the issues that push Muslim youth living in the neighborhood toward extremist groups such as ISIS.
She’s been accused of pitting one faith against another, but denied that she’s not being divisive. “We must find a way of bringing people together,” said Frost. “We must create cohesion, or we will have a Bosnia/Serbia situation.”
She’s not worried
All those statitics that show young women aren’t interested in becoming nuns these days? Sr. Marilyn Schauble of the Benedictine Sisters of Erie in Pennsylvania isn’t worried.
“You have to have people who see this as a way their spiritual life is going to grow, and they think that they can do this with other people,” Schauble tells WSEE TV in Erie.
In her town, there were 586 women religious in 1991; there are 300 today.
One reason: Twenty-somethings have so many more and varied career choices now.
“Today they’re serving as CEOs and working in all kinds of different outreaches,” Anne-Marie Welsh, communication director for the Diocese of Erie, said. “It's possible to do all of those things without becoming a sister today so that's part of it.”
But dioceses like the one in Erie, Welsh said, “are evolving, they’re listening to what the needs are, and realigning their ministries and their outreaches to meet those needs.”
Quote of the week
I love this quote about Sr. Kathleen Ryan in a story about her work in the Chicago Tribune.
Ryan, 68, founded and directs the Dominican Literacy Center in suburban Aurora that teaches mostly immigrant women how to read, write and speak English because “the men learn English at work and the children learn it at school,” Ryan told the paper.
Describing Ryan, Amy Manion, past president of the center’s board, said: “There are two kinds of people – battery chargers and battery drainers. Sister Kathleen is a battery charger. She inspires the students and tutors.”
My new goal in life: Be a battery charger.
[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.]