Morning Prayer for 2024 Founder's Day
Preaching by Sister Carol Johannes, OP

 

Thursday, June 27, 2024
1 Corinthians 3:9c-11

What a perfect text for today! “For we are God’s co-workers; you are God’s field,” Paul says, “God’s building.” All of us have been God’s co-workers for decades: teaching, preaching, healing, feeding, caring, encouraging, building up God’s people. We’ve been the great work horses of the church. But now, we’ve gone from subject to object: often, we’re the ones now in need of healing, feeding, and caring. And our faithful God has sent us the incredible gift of a new group of Co-workers, who direct their attention to us with kindness, gentleness, care, and often affection. And as we experience each Co-worker, we know we are experiencing God’s own goodness. Thank you!

But on this Founder’s Day, though it is always healthy to live in the present, it’s also a good and holy thing to reflect upon the past: how and why has our reality come to be? And we know the answer. There have been many, many exceptional heroines in our past, far too many to name today. One, however, could almost be said to have birthed us. And that, of course, is Mother Camilla Madden.

If she were asked today to describe her Adrian ministry, she could, without missing a beat, quote Paul’s words: “According to the grace of God given to me, like a wise master builder, I laid a foundation, and [others] have built upon it. But each one must be careful how to build on it, for no one can lay a foundation other than the one that is there, namely, Jesus Christ.” And build upon that foundation, she did.

It seems that there is one constant in every period in the lives of people of faith, and that is to sustain hope in the midst of difficult and discouraging situations. Among other things, political polarization, dishonesty, greed and an almost inexhaustible hunger for power weigh heavily upon us today. In Mother Camilla’s era, however, she dealt with genuine religious persecution as the Ku Klux Klan flourished and crosses were burned on the front lawn of the Motherhouse.

Perhaps the greatest hardship, however, was the constant struggle for resources. The Adrian endeavor might be called the “field” that Paul speaks of in Corinthians, but it was large, empty, bleak and daunting. “It must be understood that Mother Camilla assumed charge of the newborn Adrian province in its most poverty stricken and lonely time. As a branch of the New York Motherhouse, which was under the jurisdiction of the Archbishop of New York..., Bishop Foley of Detroit had little use of it. Mother Camilla suffered from his indifference, and worse, his almost brutal refusal of allowing her to take schools in Detroit.” Her plea to open an Academy was rejected time and time again, and her compassionate Sisters could see the heartbreak this caused her.

Our early history, Amid the Alien Corn (and at the time it was quite alien), asks, “What was it in Mother Camilla that gave her particular qualities of greatness? Different answers would come from different people, but most would agree that faith and charity called forth the other strengths evident in her activities. Above all, they must have pressed her on to the risks she took, almost spontaneously at times.” There were times that appeared that she was actually living on risk; she was really building on faith. Risk was the courage of her faith. She was not by nature a bold, adventurous woman. But given a need, and a little push from somewhere, she pressed forward while others might have stared and shaken their heads and simply said, “impossible.”

One could go on forever extolling Mother Camilla’s extraordinary gifts: her generosity, creativity, intelligence, charm, dedication to education, holiness, and hospitality. If she were alive today – as far as hospitality is concerned – she would have been absolutely thrilled to welcome and embrace our Sisters from Edmonds and the Philippines.

One author describes her as accomplishing her dreams through “skilled implementation” and “inspired scheming.” Structures were solid at that time, but she had a way of finding cracks to escape from them. She could never have accomplished all she did for the Church and the Congregation had she not possessed this facility of getting out from under the networks.

We honor her today as our almost unbelievably courageous Foundress of the reality we know and love today as “Adrian,” and all it means to us. We might like to take a walk down the hall to the historical library, make a mini pilgrimage, to look with gratitude and reverence at Mother Camilla’s legacy, her enduring hope and trust in God, and her passionate love for all that Adrian represents. And just maybe, she might help us as her faithful daughters, to develop the capacity to do some “inspired scheming and skilled implementation” of our own in assuring a bright future for the place we call home, as well as the wider world it loves and serves.

 

Several quotes above are from Amid the Alien Corn (Volume I, the Early Years, 1879-1924) by Sister Mary Philip Ryan, OP, 1967. 

A recording of the Prayer Service is available on our public video library.