What's Happening

January 30, 2025, Milwaukee, Wisconsin – Sister Nancy Murray, OP, known for her long-time ministry of performing a one-woman stage presentation of 14th Century Dominican mystic St. Catherine of Siena, recently took on new roles. She portrayed Sister Catarina de Vigri, St. Catherine of Bologna (1413-1463), an Italian Franciscan Sister and later Poor Clare, as well as the two foundresses of the School Sisters of St. Francis in Milwaukee. 

The presentation took place recently during that community’s 150th-anniversary Gala, held at the Saint Kate Hotel in Milwaukee. The hotel is named after St. Catherine of Bologna, Patroness of the Arts.

“There was such a great enthusiasm about [the presentation and Gala] because they had never done anything like that before,” Sister Nancy said of the School Sisters of St. Francis. The evening included dinner, a silent auction, a live auction, and dancing to the music of mariachis, she recalled. “There was great joy that something they had never tried before was so successful.” 

Sister Nancy said she was invited in April 2024 to portray St. Catarina by Sister Deborah Fumagalli, SSSF, newly elected to the community’s International Leadership Team. Ironically, Sister Nancy said, much of Sister Deborah’s ministry experience was with Dominicans: a few years at Aquinas Dominican High School in Chicago and 26 years at Regina Dominican High School in Wilmette, Illinois – both sponsored by the Adrian Dominican Sisters. Now, Sister Nancy said, she returned the favor by immersing herself in the Franciscan heritage. 

Sister Nancy devoted a great deal of time to studying the materials on the life and times of St. Catherine, provided by Sister Deborah. As a friend of the daughter of the Duke of Ferrara, Catherine was brought up in the Duke’s court, where she enjoyed the advantage of an education. But when the Duke killed his wife and his wife’s boyfriend on learning of her infidelity, Catherine fled the court and joined the Franciscans in her town as a Franciscan Tertiary. Because her superior believed that Catherine’s privileges could make her too proud, she was relegated to tending the animals outside the convent. There, she met and befriended the local people, offering prayers for their intentions. The superior then ordered her to engage in full-time ministry as the community’s novice mistress – inside the convent and away from the people. 

After four years, Sister Catherine left that community and in 1432 co-founded a convent in the Order of Poor Clares. Catherine was named Superioress and later became the Abbess of a second Poor Clare community. Throughout it all, she was always willing to serve in humbler capacities and continued to work on her art – which has received recognition for its quality, Sister Nancy said.

Sister Nancy’s preparation also involved obtaining a habit of the Poor Clares. She asked Sister Barbara Quincey, OP, gifted at quilting and sewing, to create the habit. “The pattern would never have been done if it was up to me,” Sister Nancy said. “[Sister] Barb really was a pro.”

After her years of portraying St. Catherine of Siena, Sister Nancy said she can easily relate to St. Catherine of Bologna – who had probably heard about her Dominican predecessor. Like St. Catherine of Siena, Sister Nancy said, the service of St. Catherine of Bologna involved “compassion, empathy, and care for patients.”

But the focus of Sister Nancy’s presentation changed when she began studying materials about the history of the School Sisters of St. Francis – and especially about their founders: Emma Franziska (Mother Alexia) Hoell, Paulina (Mother Alfons) Schmid, and Helena (Sister Clara) Seiter. The three left their community in Germany in 1843 to come to the United States and establish their community in Wisconsin. 

“I had to change my accent to German so I could be the two Mothers,” Sister Nancy recalled. The story included the Mothers’ building projects – still standing today – and their conflict with bishops as they started their new community. The School Sisters of St. Francis “wanted to convey that they were standing on the shoulders of people whose lives showed a lot of sacrifice,” Sister Nancy said.

The timing of her performance also changed, from one hour to 20 minutes – with much more material. Ultimately, Sister Nancy spent 25 minutes portraying Sister Catherine of Bologna and the foundresses of the School Sisters of St. Francis.    

Sister Nancy comes by her own creative talent as an actress very naturally. A native of Wilmette, Illinois, and a graduate of Regina Dominican High School, she grew up in the talented Murray family, which includes her brother, the well-known actor Bill Murray.  

Sister Nancy took on her ministry of portraying St. Catherine of Siena after the April 2000 death of Sister Kathleen Harkins, OP. She followed in Sister Kathleen’s footsteps, bringing her one-woman performance to parishes, schools, and other organizations throughout the United States and around the world. 

She has also portrayed other women religious, most notably Sister Dorothy Stang, a School Sister of Notre Dame who was martyred in 2005 while helping poor farmers protect their land in the Amazon Rainforest.

Sister Nancy is available to bring her prayerful performance to schools, parishes, and other organizations. Contact her at 517-266-3533 or [email protected].

 

Caption for above feature photo: Adrian Dominican Sister Nancy Murray, OP, portraying St. Catherine Vigri of Bologna, interacts with guests at the School Sisters of St. Francis 150th Anniversary Gala.
Photo Courtesy of the School Sisters of St. Francis
 

January 17, 2025, Southfield, Michigan – Three Adrian Dominican Sisters participated last month in a meeting of the Gamaliel Nuns’ Caucus, a coalition of religious Catholic Sisters and lay community organizers working together to bring about “transformative justice” in society. 

Sisters Cheryl Liske, OP, Xiomara Méndez-Hernandez, OP, and Janice Brown, OP, participated in the afternoon session of the Nuns’ Caucus, held at the end of the Fifth Biennial Race and Power Summit. The summit drew affiliates and leaders of the Gamaliel Network, along with invited allies and partners, to the three-day event. The theme was “A Pivotal Moment in Time: Resistance, Persistence, Insistence.”

Founded in 1989, the Gamaliel Network trains community and faith leaders “in building political power and creating organizations that unite people of diverse faiths and races” in work for justice. The network is made up of 44 affiliates and state offices in seven states. 

Participating in the Nuns’ Caucus meeting were sisters and organizers who attended the Race and Power Summit and others who participated via Zoom.

Sister Theresa Keller, FSPA, of the Sisters of St. Francis of Perpetual Adoration, opened the meeting by explaining that the Nuns’ Caucus began about two years ago with a letter of intent. In their work for justice, the Sisters intersect with community organizers represented by Gamaliel. This intersection led to the proposal for a more formal network of sisters and community organizers within Gamaliel.  

“Historically, many Catholic religious sisters came to this country to serve the many immigrant communities,” said Sister Cheryl, a community organizer who served Gamaliel as National Training Director and a senior trainer. “They supported the common good by building social infrastructure,” such as hospitals, schools, and universities. 

In spite of the good that Catholic sisters brought to the United States, Sister Cheryl admitted that in many places, sisters were “complicit in racism and segregation. We lament in regard to such things as not being significant voices,” she said.

Sister Cheryl pointed to NETWORK, a social justice lobby formed by Catholic sisters about 50 years ago to serve as a voice for people suffering from poverty or other forms of injustice. “We renew our efforts to support the common good,” she said. “Today’s sisters, rooted in the Gospel and ancient practices, persist with our call for transformative justice inside and outside the Church structures.”

Sister Xiomara, a native of the Dominican Republic and Executive Director of the Dominican Sisters Conference, related her own experience of racism when she came to the United States to enter the Adrian Dominican Congregation. She expected the people of the United States to be good people because of her experience with the Adrian Dominican Sisters who ministered in her country. 

“I was privileged in my country because I was a light color,” she said, but she experienced the biases of some people in the United States. “I was feeling less and less and didn’t know why.” She learned that she was experiencing racism. 

Sister Xiomara educated herself on the biases in the United States and became involved in the Congregation’s efforts to root out racist attitudes. In its Toward Communion Circle created to work towards the Congregation’s 2016 Enactment on Racism and Diversity, “we wanted to undo racism among us to raise diversity,” she said. “We wrestled a lot, and some of the stories were painful.”

Sister Xiomara cited the efforts of the Revolutionary Love Project with its three practices: See no stranger; love others, but first tend to your own wounds and fears; and adapt the practice of a midwife: push for new life. The project was founded by Valarie Kaur, a civil rights leader, lawyer, educator, activist, and author.

“I refuse to see myself as a victim,” Sister Xiomara said. “I want to see all of us as a beautiful creation of God. I want to see myself as more than a survivor but a thriver.”

Sister Janice spoke of prayer as a basis for religious life. “Prayer is where we find our ground, where I open myself to a greater world,” she said. Contemplation “is a time to step aside and be with God. You stop and contemplate and just let that sink in … bringing you to a higher level of consciousness.”

Study is also an important part of the Dominican tradition and the tradition of other congregations as well, Sister Janice said. It involves understanding the world and discerning where God is and what God plans for us. 

Prayer and study bring us to spiritual activism, “the act of transforming oneself,” Sister Janice said. “Prayer is a breath of life that holds us as a community and as a unique child of God. It brings us back to the essence of who we are and whose we are.”   

The meeting concluded with a discussion on how participants were sustained by prayer and their mission, and on ways that community organizers and Sisters can work together and learn from one another. 
 

Caption for above feature photo: From left: Sister Cheryl Liske, OP, Sister Xiomara Méndez-Fernandez, OP, and Sister Janice Brown, OP.