Thank You, Sister.

Marion Hayes

Thank you, Sister Anthony Therese.  After making a huge impression on me in the fourth grade, she moved to Long Island to join her order there.  I remember her being an exhuburant, dedicated and fun loving teacher.  She was part of the inspiration that brought me to become a teacher today.  She played the organ for us and sang to us.  She always knew how to make us smile.  I am a teacher with deaf children and have a very small group of children that I teach.  When I was in the classroom, it was easy to do a hands on experiments in science with only 4 or 5 children.  By the graces of God, to this day, I don’t know how she did hands on experiments in science with us.  There were about 40 children.  She orchestrated us to enjoy the experiement when we made plaster of paris fossils.  I want to throw a parade in her honor and I am in awe of how she engaged all of us and we didn’t lose attention or act up.  I knew how much she loved teach – she beamed!!  So, today, Sister Anthony Therese, my teacher from Brooklyn, thank you for instilling in me the love that I have for teaching today.

Margi Hollingshead

Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada

I just want to say that the Sisters of St. Benedict in St. Joseph, Minnesota, have changed my life.  I lived with them for 4 months in 2002 as a “visiting scholar” in their Studium program, working on a book about how creativity is nurtured in community.  I came as a committed Christian of Canadian Baptist tradition.  And I came with a fair bit of ignorance about Roman Catholicism. Read the rest of this entry »

Irene Senn

I have been blessed to know sisters from many different congregations on my life journey. I was taught for 12 years of grade and high school by the Sisters of St. Joseph of Tipton, Indiana (now part of a new congregation of seven communities that joined together a couple of years ago). I recall very many of them with much fondness.

I met the Sinsinawa Dominicans when I went to Edgewood College in Madison, WI. Again I was impressed with their genuine interest in their students. I married after two years of college and moved to the Milwaukee area. There I encountered both the School Sisters of St. Francis when I enrolled in Alverno College to complete my degree, and the School Sisters of Notre Dame when our children began school. I still credit Sr. Melmarie with giving me the nudge I needed to become more involved in justice and peace work – thank you Sr. Mel! Read the rest of this entry »

Donna and Rick Helm

Louisville, KY

It is with great thanks that I write this note.  Sr. Jean Madeline was the principal at St. Bartholomew Catholic Grade School in Louisville, Kentucky when our two sons, now 35 and 38 years old, attended this school.  Sr. Jean Madeline was gifted in bringing out the best in her teachers and students.  My brother worked in the parish as the maintenance man and is also quite fond of Sr. Jean Madeline. Read the rest of this entry »

Martina Nicholson, MD

Santa Cruz, CA

Thank you, Sisters, for the gift of your vocation.  Because your giving your lives to the love of God is the clearest window into a living, breathing faith which does justice, and which brings us into the kingdom of God, as a whole choir of birds singing in the mustard tree!  I was so blessed to be taught by the Sisters of the Sacred Heart of Mary.  I think that Sister Peg, at Loyola Marymount, may have been my high school principal at Marymount Santa Barbara.  She was Mother Honora, before the nuns were brought to the discernment of their order, that to live in the world simply was better than to hide behind a starched wimple and 17th century outfit.  Her real name was Margaret Mary, and so I think she may have morphed into Sister Peg.  The character of the person you describe is so like my favorite nun!  Always honest, straight-forward, bustling with positive energy, and capable of the metaphorical lesson “how do you become pregnant with God?” –or carry God to the world?”  She was earthy  and full of joy, rosy-faced and upbeat. Read the rest of this entry »

Joanne Bray,

WOC national Board, VOTF

Bridgeport, CT

This morning I came across a song many Catholic women have loved and sung over the decades as we have worked for change. May it offer you, all Sisters, as balm for rest along the way. Read the rest of this entry »

Fran Schultz

Monmouth County, NJ

A special thank you to the IHM Sisters who taught at the Good Shepherd Catholic grade school in Camp Hill, PA.  I am especially grateful and thankful to Sister Regina, my first piano teacher, who taught music and led us all in choir practice in the Church.  Under her influence the school and Church and neighborhood was filled with singing and music throughout my childhood and early teens. Read the rest of this entry »

Daryl Ann Thompson Neubecker

Thank you for two of life’s best gifts: faith and knowledge. The fact that you devoted your entire lives to God is a constant reminder of your great faith and love of the Lord. As a Catholic school student I was always moved by this most generous gift of yourselves. Read the rest of this entry »

Cathy Nutter

Long Island, NY

I would like to express to all the women religious that have crossed my path how thankful I am to them. I went to Catholic school for nine years. The Sisters of St. Joseph taught me and formed me into the woman I am today. I am so grateful to them. Also, I have been going on religious retreats since I was in my early twenties. The Cenacle sisters of Ronkonkoma in NY have been such a blessing to me; I can’t even begin to express to them how they’ve touched my life in such a positive way. Sister Mary Jane, Sister Pam, Sister Dorothy to name a few. And the Ursuline sisters in Blue Point, also on Long Island in NY, who have the gift of hospitality, Sr. Philimena O’Brien having been their leader for so many years of her life. I’ve also been touched by Sister Patty, a Dominican sister who has always been such a blessing to all that know her. I love the sisters so much, I aspired to become a nun myself, though circumstances didn’t permit it. I will always be grateful for all the nuns having such a positive influence on my life. Thank you sisters, and may God bless all of you.

Susan Francois, CSJP
Seattle, Washington

I would like to go on the record as thanking Sister Janet, RJM.  Sister Janet was my high school principal at Regina High School, a small all-girls school since closed, once run by the Religious of Jesus and Mary in Adelphi, Maryland.  Sister Janet was kind, fun, wise and always present to her students.   She took you seriously, even as you were experiencing 13 year old angst, and encouraged you to become who you were meant to be.  She also showed me that you can be “cool” and be a nun.  She even dressed up as punk rocker one year for Halloween! Read the rest of this entry »