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January 23, 2018, Milwaukee, Wisconsin – In the past year, School Sisters of St. Francis and Sisters of St. Francis of Assisi (Lake Franciscans) have been fired up for justice and peace advocacy in such areas as human trafficking, immigration reform, and peace. Encouraging them in their advocacy, is Adrian Dominican Sister Durstyne Farnan, OP.
In June 2016, Sister Durstyne moved to Milwaukee as the justice coordinator for the School Sisters. Since then, she has taken on service one day per week as consultant and animator for the justice work of the Lake Franciscans. Sister Durstyne convenes the quarterly justice committees for both communities, works with the sub-committees, helps the Sisters to establish annual goals and objectives, and helps to organize the various justice and peace actions and presentations of the two Franciscan communities.
Some of the peace and justice activities coordinated by Sister Durstyne in the past year-and-a-half have included:
Sister Durstyne said she enjoys working with the Sisters, and is thrilled by their responses to justice and peace work. “Getting people to make a difference is really so empowering for them,” she said. “For most of them, this is the first time they’ve ever done anything like this.” The Sisters, who are now retired, hadn’t participated in advocacy work, often because of the hectic schedule of their full-time ministries.
Sister Durstyne sees her role as facilitating the Sisters’ desire to remain active and engaged in justice and peace work – supplying them with the information and resources they need. “Once they get the directions, they can go forward,” she said. “My role is to facilitate and animate people. I help get a lot of background [information] for them, but they make the decisions.”
Both congregations have made a difference in Milwaukee for well over a century, Sister Durstyne noted.
Part of her ministry has involved learning about the issues that Milwaukee faces. Although Milwaukee faces the same issues as the people of Adrian, Michigan, “in Milwaukee, the issues are compounded by size,” she explained. Along with racism, poverty, and immigration reform, the people of Milwaukee face the need for transportation for people who strive to get out of poverty by finding high-paying jobs – which are often an hour’s drive away from Milwaukee; the high re-incarceration rate of former prisoners; and human trafficking, which is prevalent in Milwaukee.
A clinical social worker by training, Sister Durstyne advocated for adults with severe mental illness and then served for six years in Ghana and Kenya, Africa. When she returned to the United States in 1996, the General Council was seeking a new justice and peace coordinator for the Adrian Dominican Congregation. “It was a position I had to grow into because I didn’t have a lot of experience with multiple issues,” Sister Durstyne said. In this new ministry, she said, she has gained a global perspective and has become involved with Dominican Friars and Sisters worldwide through her work as a North American Justice Promoter for the Dominicans.
Although she is frequently challenged by the difficulty that constituents sometimes face in contacting their legislators, Sister Durstyne enjoys working with the Sisters in the Franciscan communities as they advocate for justice. “My role is to help facilitate their desire to stay involved,” she said. “It makes me happy when I see them getting involved.”
October 20, 2017, Juarez, Mexico – In some ways, Sister Maureen Gallagher, OP, might be described as a saleswoman, helping the women from the Las Mujeres de Esperanza y Fe co-op to sell their hand-sewn products to people in the United States. But at a deeper level, Sister Maureen is helping the women to have confidence in their own abilities to earn a living for their families.
Sister Maureen ministers at Centro Santa Catalina in Juarez, Mexico. In a city known for its violence and poverty, Centro Santa Catalina provides residents with a place for spiritual enrichment, leadership programs, homework help, organic gardens, and the women’s sewing cooperative. The center was established in 1996 with the help of Adrian Dominican Sisters Donna Kustusch, OP, and Eleanor Stech, OP.
The services offered help to support and empower families who are economically poor, living in many cases in hand-made shacks in Colonia Panfilo Natera – a section in Juarez where people moved from small villages to find work. Many of the families survive on what the women earn through their sewing co-op.
In the co-op’s 20 years of existence, women have learned not only how to make clothes and other products, but also how to run the co-op and sell the products themselves.
Sister Maureen’s role is to set up sites in the United States where the women can sell their products. “We go to parishes and pre-Christmas sales,” Sister Maureen explained. “I ask the pastor if we can sell the products as a social justice outreach program. Most of their responses are very positive.”
Because of the conditions set forth in their visas, the women of the co-op are only permitted to travel within 40 miles of the U.S. border to sell their products. As a result, Sister Maureen said, they have only worked with parishes in portions of New Mexico and Texas. But Sister Maureen also sells the women’s products – shawls, purses, scarves, tablecloths, dolls, pot holders, aprons, bookmarks, and prayer flags – through retreat centers run by women religious – including Weber Center Shop in Adrian. The products are also available online.
Sister Maureen takes great satisfaction from seeing the progress in the women’s confidence and ability to sell their products. One of her special joys is “seeing the women grow. I go to the sales with the women, and in the beginning, I would help sell. Now we bring two women and they run everything. I just help if they need a translator.”
The women have also taken over the administration of the co-op, serving as its officers and in general running the operation. “I only step in once in a while,” Sister Maureen said. “I mostly do fundraising and bring in volunteers.”
Sister Maureen is working on securing grants to help families get the medical attention they need and to provide scholarships for children to complete their education. Overall, she said, the purpose of Centro Santa Catalina is to build community among the people of the colonia and to help them to live well. “Our focus is to give people the skills they need so they don’t have to migrate,” she explained.
June 30, 2017, Pensacola, Florida – For the past nine years, seniors at the Cathedral of the Sacred Heart Parish in Pensacola have been on a journey – understanding more about their faith and its impact on their lives through Bible study.
Throughout those years, Sister Marguerite Renuart, OP, has been in the privileged and blessed position of guiding them as the parish’s Director of Adult Bible Study.
Nine years ago, Sister Marguerite explained, she was invited to plan and organize a parish Bible study program. “I had no idea where this would go,” she said. “Now as I reflect on my work, I am amazed at where this job has taken me. Class planning and organization are just the nuts and bolts that keep the whole thing going.”
The parish offers the Bible study program five times a week, with more than 100 participants in each course. Through the years, thousands of parishioners have taken part in the program. Among Sister Marguerite’s joys and blessings as Director of Adult Bible Study is the “eagerness of the senior parishioners as they sign up for the two-hour classes, buy their study guide, faithfully attend the classes, watch the DVD presentation, participate in the group discussion, and open up to each other.”
For Sister Marguerite, the success of the program lies in the transformation of participants rather than in their numbers. “Once they start reading the Bible and working out answers to the assigned questions, they come to class longing to understand and to share questions, doubts, and amazement about what is being revealed to them,” she said. “As the facilitator, I have the joy of deeply listening to participants. I am amazed at how God is working through their lives.”
Many of the participants were raised in the faith before Vatican II and see themselves as “catching up” on new understandings of the faith brought about by that Council.“God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit have a whole new meaning in their prayer lives,” Sister Marguerite noted. Her role has been to accompany them on this faith journey.
It has been a “unique privilege” to walk with parishioners as they attend Bible study, “longing to know and grow in faith, desiring to grow closer to Jesus and His Church, and wanting to participate fully in the spiritual life offered to them,” Sister Marguerite said. “I thank God every day for this opportunity to know, love, and serve Him.”