Kateri Tekakwitha stained glass window by Debora Coombs in St. Mary

Let’s hear it for the Mohawk Valley area of New York state! From that area of the world not one but TWO soon-to-be saints have emerged (not counting myself who was born a mere 3 hours away).

“The Blessed Kateri Tekakwitha, a Mohawk Indian, spent most of her life here during the 17th centurY. About 200 years later and 40 miles to the west, the Blessed Mother Marianne Cope began a religious life that focused on providing medical care in central New York and the Hawaiian islands.

On Dec. 20, Pope Benedict XVI certified miracles attributed to the two women, the final step toward sainthood. The women’s canonization is expected to happen this year.

When they are elevated to sainthood, they’ll be among just 12 of the Catholic Church’s thousands of saints who either were born in America or ministered in what is now the United States.” (source)

While many may be familiar with Kateri, let me fill you in a bit more on Mother Marianne. She belonged to the Sisters of St. Francis of the Neumann Communities.

“Mother Marianne Cope’s roots in the Mohawk Valley began in Utica, where her family settled in 1840 after emigrating from Germany the previous year, when she was a year old. A factory worker until she joined the Franciscan sisters in Syracuse in the early 1860s, the young nun worked as a nurse and hospital administrator, helping to found two hospitals — St. Joseph’s in Syracuse and St. Elizabeth’s in Utica — that are still in operation today. Under her direction, no one was denied medical care, according to Sister Patricia Burkard, general minister of the Syracuse-based Sisters of St. Francis of the Neumann Communities.” (source)

Marianne Cope in a 1883 photo provided by the Sisters of St. Francis of the Neumann Communities

She was “the only one of 50 religious leaders to respond positively to an emissary from Hawaii who requested for nuns to help care for Hansen’s disease patients on Kalaupapa.” This earned her the title “beloved mother of the outcasts.” The place where she went was a settlement on Molokai island run by Father Damien who was recently canonized a saint in 2009.

“Marianne was known for demanding money from the government to help the leprosy patients. She wasn’t “afraid to pursue anything for her people,” said Sister Davilyn Ah Chick of Honolulu….

The nuns said Marianne is credited with having a school built and teaching women and girls to sew and garden. She was also a source of support during a time of much suffering, which included abuse, families forced apart and the banning of pregnancies, [Sister Rose Annette] Ahuna said.

Marianne died there of natural causes in 1918.” (source: Hawaii nuns describe life of soon-to-be saint, Jan. 2, 2011)

We look forward to the canonizations!

AS075 Ask Sister podcast recorded live on June 16, 2011. Sponsored by aNunsLife.org ministry. Topics include: college grad talks about volunteering for a year, recognizing God at work in daily life, called to be a nun or doctor (or both?), and more!

Click PLAY below or right-click here to download the MP3.
Subscribe to A Nun’s Life Podcasts:

Ask Sister podcast is a live podcast where you have the opportunity to engage with us and ask questions about nuns, prayer, religious life, or pretty much anything in between!

Here are some of the topics we address in this Ask Sister podcast:

• How to recognize God at work our daily lives — putting on our God goggles
• Should I become a doctor or a nun or can I do both?
• SPECIAL ON-AIR GUEST: Eilis talks about volunteering for a year and living the three pillars of service, community, and spirituality. We talk with her about the Franciscan Community Volunteers, helping refugees resettle in the U.S., how it has affected her faith, and more!

Do you have a question for us? Visit our new portress Sister Mary Evoca http://anunslife.org/contact/and leave a message for us. Be sure to give us your first name and city from where you are calling. We’ll play your message and respond on the Ask Sister podcast. You can also comment below. In whatever way you contact us, please know that your last name, email address, and any other private information will be kept confidential.

AS052 Ask Sister podcast recorded live on December 10, 2010. Sponsored by aNunsLife.org ministry. Guest: Sister Donna Hart, IHM. Topics include: military sisters, convents defined, Franciscan knotted cord, down and unmotivated, why be Catholic?, and more!

Click PLAY below or right-click here to download the MP3.

Subscribe to A Nun’s Life Podcasts:

Ask Sister podcast is a live podcast where you have the opportunity to engage with us and ask questions about nuns, prayer, religious life, or pretty much anything in between!

Here are some of the questions we addressed in this Ask Sister podcast:

• Can Catholic sisters be in the military or national guard?
• What makes a particular abode a “convent”?
• How does one find the knotted cord that Franciscans wear?
• I’m feeling down and have no motivation unless I become a nun. What do I do?
• Why be Catholic if there other ways to get to heaven?
• Do you find your lives particularly stressful? When you are stressed, what do you do? How do you cope with the unknown?

Today we’ll be joined by special guest Sister Donna Hart, IHM. We’ll ask Sister Donna about her life as a Catholic sister, and in particular what it was like to experience life as a sister before the Second Vatican Council, during the Council and now 40+ years later.

Do you have a question for us? Call our toll-free Voicemail Hotline at 888-703-4732 and leave a voicemail for us with your question. Be sure to give us your first name and city from where you are calling. We’ll play your message and respond on the Ask Sister podcast. You can also send us an email or comment below. In whatever way you contact us, please know that your last name, email address, and any other private information will be kept confidential.

It is Monday which means NUNDAY! Yup, we’re back with photos of Catholic sisters and nuns in our never-ending campaign to help folks get to know real sisters and nuns and to change the face of nun imagery on the web (which, if you haven’t noticed, is heavily populated by nun caricatures and erotica).

Sisters and nuns and lay folks from across the world have been sending us photos and wonderful stories. Today we are featuring a photo from our friend Sister Lovina Pammitt, OSF, a Franciscan Sister of the Sacred Heart.

The photo is of Sister Mary Barbara Hassler and Sister Patricia Ann Murray and was taken during an outreach ministry week in Danville, Illinois.

Sister Mary Barbara works as the Religious Formation Coordinator at Saint Joseph School in Libertyville, Illinois and is the Novice Minister for the community.

Sister Pat has been the Director of Religious Education at Saint Charles Borromeo Church in Fort Wayne, and recently moved to West Virginia to work in social service ministry.

To see all the photos of Catholic sisters and nuns and links to their stories, visit the A Nun’s Life Facebook photo album. If you’ve got a photo and story (how you know Sister) of a real Catholic sister or nun, check out the details on submitting your photo for consideration.

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Join the A Nun’s Life community for prayer at 6 p.m. Central Time (your time zone).

There’s been some interesting articles about Catholics sisters and nuns in the news this week.

Black nun discusses her role in ‘60s rights movement by Chaz Muth for Catholic News Service (February 17, 2009)

As a black Catholic nun, Franciscan Sister Mary Antona Ebo risked her well-being to participate in the legendary 1965 civil rights protest in Selma, Ala. But she said her fears for her safety subsided upon her arrival, when a young black girl burst through the crowd and tossed her arms around her while noting she had never before seen a nun who shared her dark skin.

Be sure to check out the documentary film Sisters of Selma for more about Sister Mary Antona and other Catholic sisters who participated in the protest in Selma.

Sister Anne’s Hands (Picture Puffins) by Marybeth Lorbiecki (Author) and Wendy Popp (Illustrator) (Puffin Books, 2000)

This children’s book was recently mentioned by Pat McNamara of McNamara’s Blog: Musings of a Church Historian from Queens, New York. Publishers Weekly says, “An African American nun challenges the beliefs of her second-grade students in this thought-provoking picture book set in the 1960s.”