Homage aux soeurs
While visiting Québec City last week for the Fêtes de la
nouvelle France, we were wandering through Place Royale surrounded by early Québec
re-enactors in period pantaloons, rough linen shirts and tricorne hats with
conspicuous cell phones hanging from their beautiful woven sashes. Surrounded
by countless camcorder-bearing tourists visiting for the Fêtes, the
International Fireworks Expo at Montmorency and the sheer beauty of this
ancient outcrop in the middle of the St Lawrence River,
they were demonstrating early craft skills associated with agrarian and river
life. Early Québecois music played somewhere in the distance, a mixture of
ribec, galician pipes and fiddle, when suddenly a small flock of elderly nuns
strolled by in their beautiful off-white habits smiling broadly at us. I had
not seen such a sight in years and I was inundated with memories of an earlier Vermont, my own Catholic
upbringing and the extraordinary impact of nuns on our own state.
Jeanne Mance School of Nursing, Fanny Allen Hospital, Bishop
Degoesbriand Hospital, Trinity College, the cloistered convent in Williston,
Mater Christi School, Rice High School, Christ the King, Sacre Coeur in Newport
and countless other reminders of the benevolence and good works of Vermont’s
large population of sisters. These institutions and more were started and
managed by the various orders whose sole mission was charitable works. Others
were started by priests, but staffed by nuns.
There was in all this a commitment to good works and
community, seemingly subsumed now in today’s culture of consumerism. Young
woman facing poor prospects for marriage or worse, the fear of an abusive one
filled with hard work, often sought refuge in a convent where they might enjoy
the safety of a sisterhood, even as they faced the daunting task of helping others
in need.
Vermonters of all faiths owe a great deal to the many orders
of nuns who have been an important part of the fabric of our state, the
Benedictines, the Ursulines, Sisters of Mercy, Sisters of the Sacred Heart,
Sisters of Providence, Atonement Sisters, Daughters of the Holy Spirit, Sisters
of St. Joseph and The Hospitallers of St. Joseph. While the male hierarchy of
the Church struggles with their own misdeeds, a steep decline in their own numbers
and the rise in orthodoxy that puts them at odds with many in their own flock,
we can all be grateful for their female counterparts and for their simple good
works of faith.
So often in life it is what we do rather than what we say
that makes all the difference. Our children become who we are, not who we tell
them to be. The exemplary life stands in stark contrast to the proffered life
of harsh sermons, canon law, black and white orthodoxies and commandments.
Throughout the volatile history of the Catholic Church, nuns
from many religious communities have suffered the edicts, politics and even
retribution of the Church’s male hierarchy, getting their spiritual sustenance
from helping others in need: raising orphan children, helping young men and woman
in trouble find their way back into society, teaching, nursing and caring for
the ill or infirm, tending the dying, feeding and caring for the poor.
There have been many leaders among the sisters themselves
who have served Vermonters in government leadership positions, as college heads
and hospital managers. The Bishop Degoesbriand and Fanny Allen hospitals were
staffed largely by the Hospitallers of St. Joseph. Trinity College,
whose early mission was to help young woman off the farm or from factory
families become educated and have an economic choice beyond the first proposal
of marriage was staffed largely by the Sisters of Mercy. And always behind
these leaders, there were countless nuns whose only residual image might be a
gentle smile, the beautiful habits of their particular order and the countless
good works they have done in their community of faith.
In the temptation in the desert, Christ rejects the gifts of
mystery power and authority in favor of the exemplary life and free will – a
lesson not lost on the extraordinary nuns who have woven so much into the
fabric of Vermont
for 150 years. To simply care for someone without judging them is a great gift.
We owe them much.
Bill Schubart
081208
2:53:01 PM 
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