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August 23, 2021, Detroit – Sister Nancyann Turner, OP, felt inspired to participate in Detroit’s Healing Memorial, a large-scale participatory public art installation that recognizes the depth of loss in Detroit and all Southeast Michigan during the COVID-19 pandemic.
A collaboration between the City of Detroit Office of Arts, Cranbrook Art Museum and the Detroit Riverfront Conservancy, this memorial will offer support and healing for residents of southeast Michigan who experienced all forms of loss, including physical, mental, emotional, spiritual, social, occupational, and environmental.
The floor to ceiling installation will be adorned by handmade fabric pouches or small fabric envelopes containing a written dedication such as a blessing, a remembrance or a prayer. The cumulative personal dedications will come together to form a dramatic installation at the TCF Center in Downtown Detroit. The exhibit will be unveiled on Tuesday, August 31, 2021, the official COVID-19 Memorial Day in Detroit.
Sister Nancyann, an artist, created a memorial for each Adrian Dominican Sister who died of COVID-19 this past year, as well as several more memorials for young adults who had participated in Capuchin Soup Kitchen programs during their childhood. Sister Nancyann had served as Program Director of the Soup Kitchen’s Rosa Parks Children’s and Youths’ Program.
For Sister Nancyann, creating the pouches was a sacred endeavor. “As I created each one, floods of memories came to me and I felt connected to each Sister and found myself praying to her,” she said. “I knew well many of the deceased Sisters and felt myself blessed as I worked on each memorial. Within each one, I wrote a brief letter and prayer to that particular Sister for whom the memorial was being made – 14 in all. I felt peace and solace in making our remembering tangible.”
Sister Nancyann noted that many people have been in grief and in communal lament for the past 18 months. “We have wept and we have mourned,” she said. “We have become so much more conscious of the pain surrounding an enormous number of people – way beyond our family, our Congregation – beyond our country. Our expansive grief has also reminded us that we are not alone … we are all in this together. We care for each other in new ways and we will assert hope and work for justice.”
Submitted by Sister Nancyann Turner, OP
Feature photo: These are among the pouches created by Sister Nancyann Turner, OP, that will contain blessings or messages in honor of the Adrian Dominican Sisters who died of COVID-19 in early 2021. Photo by Sister Nancyann Turner, OP
August 23, 2021, Adrian, Michigan – Adrian Dominican Sister Elise García, OP, President of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR), opened the organization’s August 11-13, 2021, annual assembly – held virtually this year – with a presidential address that outlined the history of racism in the United States and noted the complicity in racism of the Catholic Church, as well as among women religious.
“We, as Americans, have cheated ourselves of the full truth of our history, ignoring or eliding the painful stories that inextricably interweave and form the full fabric of our lives as African Americans, Native Americans, Asian Americans, Euro Americans, and Latinx Americans,” Sister Elise said in her Presidential Address, Creating Space for the Future: Cutting Deeper Grooves of Transforming Love into Evolution.
The issues of systemic racism and white privilege became especially clear in May 2020 with the murder of George Floyd and the killing of other African Americans by white police officers.
Sister Elise challenged the women religious to do the work of identifying racism and white supremacy, “acting to dismantle them in our personal lives, institutes, Conference, and ministries.” She encouraged all Christians to follow Jesus and to take on the way of the cross, a “giving over of oneself to the radical love and solidarity that Jesus lived, extending ourselves as kin to all who are marginalized, excluded, disinherited.”
Finally, Sister Else spoke of the inspiration of African American slaves, whose mysticism and faith were described by Dr. Shawn Copeland in her book, Knowing Christ Crucified: The Witness of African American Spiritual Experience. “Dr. Copeland has gleaned insights into what she calls the ‘dark and hidden wisdom’ of the enslaved by drawing on their narratives, their stories, and their spirituals.”
Sister Elise’s address was followed by a ritual asking forgiveness for the way in which women religious participated in racism and white privilege. Sister Elise was joined by Sisters Jane Herb, IHM, President-elect; Jayne Helmlinger, CSJ, Past President; and Carol Zinn, SSJ, Executive Director.
During the prayer, each woman formally delivered an apology. “Before God and all who have been grievously harmed through the generations by our complicity as women religious in the enslavement of children, women and men, I – on behalf of our Conference and members – acknowledge these sinful acts by our congregations, offer a profound apology, and pray for forgiveness.”
Read Dan Stockman’s article about the opening of the LCWR Assembly in the National Catholic Reporter’s Global Sisters Report.
Feature photo: Sisters Elise García, OP, left, President of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR) and Jane Herb, IHM, President-elect, take part in a ritual marking the sorrow of women religious for their complicity in racism.