mercy connection april may 2013

1 Mercy Connection • April /May 2013

April/May 2013

The Ministry of Art:The Artists in Community

Auburn Burlingame Cedar Rapids Chicago Detroit Omaha West Midwest Newsletter

Through the Gathering 2012, the Assembly 2013 and a variety of publications, we have treasured the gift Mercy artists give to each of us---connecting us to beauty and the sacred. This issue of Mercy Connection focuses on visual artists, and subsequent issues will feature other arts. These sisters often have a two-fold call: a call to art and a call to community. The West Midwest artists gathered at Moss Beach, CA in 2010 to connect and share resources in a weekend sponsored by the Ministry office.

After teaching school for 23 years, Sister Genemarie Beegan poured her talent in creating

art that reflects the Mercy Community---heritage displays, posters, cards, and a mural at the central office in Omaha. For the past three years, she has delighted in her full-time graphic arts job with Misericordia Home in Chicago.

Sculptor Sister Marie Henderson began to focus on Catherine McAuley even before she entered the Community. She has continued to make living portraits of Catherine in bronze, water color and crystal, working both in a studio in Farmington Hills and at home. She also teaches at the University of Detroit Mercy.

Sister Celeste Marie Nuttman has found abundant ways to “make God manifest” in her roles as a liturgical consultant, artist in residence, spiritual director, novitiate minister and art teacher. For her, art reveals God, by celebrating what is around us and inside us. “Jesus was about opening people to the reality of their God present, making manifest. That is what art is about.”

Sister Cheryl Phillips wrote of her early sense that art was her calling: “I began loving art even as a child. I have always been introverted, and I always enjoyed working with my hands over more physical or social activities. The first class I signed up for in high school was art. It is a passion that I believe I was born with. I don’t know where it comes from in me, maybe my soul, but art definitely chose me.” She is currently a full-time artist in Farmington Hills.

Each artist speaks for herself on pages 3 to 6.

Window on Autumn by Sister Cheryl Phillips


"Artistic growth is more than it is anything else, a refining of the sense of truthfulness."

Emerging artists know the reality of the need to practice skills and techniques essential to their chosen medium. The musician spends hours perfecting playing of scales and understanding harmony; the artist develops the techniques of drawing and understanding the interrelationship of colors; and the writer writes, writes and writes.

Artists work to develop skills to the point where they are free from these techniques, thus enabling creative work to flow from and result in an artistic masterpiece. In The Song of the Lark, Willa Cather refers to this development of the artist when she comments: “Artistic growth is more than it is anything else, a refining of the sense of truthfulness.” It takes a lifetime to become an artist. It is not an easy road, and only “the great artist knows how difficult it is.”

I think we are all called to be artists. We are called to bring forth the masterpiece of the person God intended us to be—to grow, refining the truthfulness of who we are becoming in time. The art of living truthfully does seem to require the development of techniques to cope with the ever changing reality in which we find ourselves. And like the artist, the practice of these skills and techniques is deliberate, specific, and essential to the art of living. The conscious development of skills becomes habits; habits become the framework of actions; and actions reflect the values---the essence of a person.

We are artists concerned with the art of living in ways that enable our lives to be God’s masterpieces—it is the pattern that will become the artistic masterpiece we are all called to create.

In Mercy,

Sister Sheila Megley, RSMfor the West Midwest Community Leadership Team

http://http://www.sistersofmercy.org/images/stories/MembersNews/2011/ilc_commitment_to_chapter_declarationfinal.pdf

http://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/881203.Willa_Cather?page=2


When I was little I would draw cartoon characters while watching them on TV. Drawing whatever I saw came easily. When I was in college though, I began to really feel a difference in my drawing experience. I found myself allowing God to direct my hand, and that brought me to prayer. It was something I wanted more of, and that led me to Mercy.

Throughout my life, I have enjoyed applied art, something that would be used. Pottery, crafts, and signs and flyers have all been very appealing to me. I never really expected to go into graphic design at any point, but when I look back over the years, I can see that I have always had a hand in graphic design without a computer. From childhood, I loved photography but could not afford the expense of it. When I began to see the connection of art and photography with computers, I was hooked.

I was staying up late at night creating heritage design on the computer when I had to teach the next day. I had to give in to the attraction to move to graphic design as a ministry.

These days my mind is filled with ways to make invitations, brochures, posters and any other ways to market Misericordia. Each day brings a new challenge with requests for raising funds. There’s a lot of freedom to try new ideas, and I find myself collecting ideas for alternative designs for my work. Being a full-time graphic artist at Misericordia is the realization of two dreams coming together! And while my days seem filled with computers, printers and deadlines, there is a balance in going down the hall and creating pottery on a wheel for the residents to glaze. I get my spiritual balance in letting God guide my hands, center my mind, and bring me back to the world with fresh energy.

The journey has been interesting, staying open to new ways to create, learning to be creative in new media, and seeing where God is in each experience. One of the greatest blessings in recent years has been meeting other Mercy artists and appreciating the way God speaks through their hands. We are all blessed.

Sister Genemarie's website: www.mercydesign.org

Sister Genemarie Beegan--Giving In to Graphic Design

Sister Genemarie created this mural for the Omaha office.


Mercy has made all the difference in my development as an artist. It began with the Sisters of Mercy valuing and recognizing the importance of a strong fine arts program within an excellent academic program at Mercy High School in Detroit, MI. Sister Mary Ignatius Denay taught her students the value of making the world more beautiful. Many became artists and a number also became Sisters of Mercy.

The Mercy influence and support continued when I taught at Mercy High School and was encouraged to create sculpture/art work for the school by my principal, Sister Nancy Thompson, RSM.

In addition, our larger community of Mercy has nourished and “carried” me during the time my family needed care. Rather than abandon my art ministry, the support and understanding shown me allowed me to care for my family and continue to create new art work.

Where does that happen in this world? Certainly for me, I found the love and support to not only endure, but grow in my craft because of our Mercy Community. I would never have been able to create the volume of work I have without the Sisters of Mercy. It is a much larger issue than simply “allowing” a person to be an artist within a community.

Without Catherine McAuley’s appreciation of art, we would not have had the marvelous illuminated manuscripts of Sister Clare Augustine Moore, nor Sister Clare Agnew’s line drawings of sisters ministering throughout Dublin, giving us insights into the early women of Mercy we call our sisters.

I am now creating crosses out of granite. The first one (on the right) is “re-purposed” granite salvaged from the steps of the chapel at the former Mercy College of Detroit. The campus was sold and the administration building which housed the chapel has been demolished. Sister Mary Kelly, Sister Gretchen Elliot and I were able to salvage quite a bit of the chapel prior to the selling of the campus. Although they are not on my web-site, the crosses are available by contacting me.

Sister Marie's website is www.mcauleyimages.com

Sister Marie Henderson--Carried by Community


I see tremendous congruence between our constitution and my call to do art in Mercy...What is mercy but a loving, compassionate response to need—a movement from slavery toward freedom, from oppression to liberation, from brokenness to wholeness and healing. It is a movement of transformation, one of love. The doing of art seems to me to be a similar response and to facilitate the same transformation.

The piece of art stops the viewer and helps them to look, to contemplate, to get in touch with reality. How do we come to know our God but in reality?

Jesus is the one who enters the world to give witness to the truth…and to serve.” (Gaudiem et spes #3.) This is what I see myself doing as an artist. How can one be in touch with truth (witness to truth) unless one is in touch with the real? How can one be in touch with the real if one’s senses are numbed, if one is not arrested in the frenzy of activity we pursue, so they can stop, look, touch, listen, and see, hear, feel?

Jesus was about opening people to the reality of their God present, making mani-fest. This is what art is about. Art deals in symbol and does this through a process which touches us on levels deeper than and higher than words.

I took a long, loving look at these poppies. While I sat on the ground next to them in our backyard, I began to draw them lightly in pencil and then to paint in watercolor.

I don't know if art chose me, or if I chose art. I have just always had to do art in or-der to live a non-cynical and loving, celebratory life. I don't cope well if I don't do art, and I get grouchy, angry, negative, down. I think it must be a mutual sort of thing. We choose each other!

Contact Sister Celeste: [email protected]. Her art is on view at http://bit.ly/Z1qPqj

Sister Celeste Marie Nuttman--A Long Loving Look at the Real


My passion, my gifts and now my ministry have been the source of my greatest suffering and my deepest joy. I have always been torn between practicing my craft and living out my fourth vow of service to the poor, the sick and the uneducated. This ambivalence has led me on a lifelong “mountain climb” with all its rocky passes, detours, struggling for footholds, falling back, and then rounding a corner to catch a glimpse of breathtaking beauty.

As a young sister, I earned a bachelor's of fine arts and a master's in art education. With these in hand, I set out to teach, though not always art. I have ministered as an elementary school teacher, and then I did a short stint in communications for the Community. I spent 13 years min-istering to women and girls in the inner city of Detroit at Alternatives for Girls when it was just getting underway.

After a profoundly dark and difficult mountain pass (burn-out followed by breast cancer while in the midst of mid-life transition,) I went back to school and was awarded a mas-ter's in art therapy. This I practiced for three years on a psychiatric ward, on an addic-tion unit and in a children’s home. For five years, I directed a small multi-cultural gallery in southwest Detroit. When the gallery closed due to the economy, I requested time to work full-time in the visual arts.

Despite my devotion to all my previous work experiences, I always grew restless and then resentful because there was never enough time and energy leftover to devote to artwork. I think that is why I kept changing ministries. I found I did indeed love what ever ministry I happened to be in at the time, but I always loved art even more. When I am doing a piece of artwork, I truly feel like a reed through which the breath of a creative God can flow. My paintings are unplanned. I start with an image, a color, a shape and the work seems to complete itself.

I am finding that I no longer want to make more clutter, of any kind, on this Earth. Lately, I have left my paint and canvas and brushes in my studio, and I have gone out-

side to work from nature, with nature, in nature. I make artwork from things I find lying around on the ground or growing profusely on the land.

These are temporary pieces that will eventually go back to the Earth from which they originated. Their beauty is fleeting like most things in nature, like us. This artwork is more about living more fully in the present, knowing that life is indeed short.

Cheryl's website is www.imakeart.org

Sister Cheryl Phillips-- A Lifelong Mountain Climb

The Journey

The Nest


The Third Jesus: The Christ We Cannot Ignore By Deepak Chopra - 2008Reviewed by Sister Lois Burroughs

Bestselling author and spiritual leader, Deepak Chopra provides us with a fresh perspective on what Jesus can teach us all, regardless of our religious background. Lest you cry heresy, he classifies Jesus in three ways: first, the historical Jesus; second, Jesus as the Son of God; and finally, the Cosmic Christ who embraces all humanity. Sam Keen, philosopher and author writes: "The hardest thing to see is what is hidden in plain sight." His point is that after 20 centuries of dogma and doctrine, we have nearly lost sight of the Gospel Jesus, and the inner meaning of that Gospel where we find the only absolutely unquestionable demands of Jesus in the New Testament, i.e. serving the poor and loving one's neighbors and even enemies.

Dr. Chopra gives us the mystical Jesus, the wise man, social reformer, and advocate for the marginalized, all of which grew out of that special relationship Jesus had with his Abba, i.e. God-consciousness. The author unfolds for us the spirit of Jesus with a reverence that is both simple and profound, making that spirit accessible to everyone in everyday life.

And finally, for those who have lost any sense of the triune God, or who find God inaccessible or troublesome, or for the rest of us who are still searching, Dr. Chopra writes: "I want to assure my readers that no one is an outsider who wishes to make Jesus central to his or her spiritual path, and no one should pay lip-service to Jesus' words while guilt, pain, and suffering continue to go unhealed."

What I'm reading!

Genemarie BeeganLinda BradfordBernadette Mary FrankMaureen HallyGloria HeeseMarie HendersonEloise Hirleman Gloria Miller

Celebrating Sisters in the Visual Arts

WMW Sisters who are visual artists full or part-time:

Have we missed anyone? If so, please email [email protected]

Geri Near Judy Niemet Celeste Marie NuttmanCheryl PhillipsAnne SekulCarolyn SnegoskiAnne Marilyn TylerMargaret Ann Walsh


Remembering Ministry in El Salvador and Honduras

On a pilgrimage last fall, Sister Diane Clyne retraced her steps of 15 years ago in Central America. The trip was with LCWR and SHARE Foundation members to El Salvador to remember the deaths of the North America women religious in 1980. She wrote about her current experiences in "Rachel’s Lament," an article for ¡VIVA! Mercy. There was much hope in the changes she witnessed, but she was distressed by new conflicts and oppression. Here we summarize her recent visit in the context of her earlier ministries.

Diane had been drawn by the hope she saw in the seven refugee families from Central America living on the Burlingame campus in the 1980s. “They have such relentless hope,” she said at that time. “I was curious

about the source of that hope.” She went to San Carlos Lempa, a rural village in El Salvador, but her experience ministering to the local population in San Carlos was difficult. A woman who thrives on her sisters in community, Diane had no communication with other women religious during much of her stay. She participated in the life of the people there, working on a marketing co-op, creating a support group for those who suffered domestic violence and helping to build an art center. She facilitated a $7,000 donation from Catholic Healthcare West (now Dignity Health) to build a pastoral center.

When she returned to the area in 2012, she was heartened. A base Christian community now has a strong pastoral care team, following up on her work to build the center. She saw that the water project which the people had begun when she lived there (there was no running water at the time) is being maintained by the people and that women have assumed leadership in small businesses. Maritza, a young high school student when Diane was there, is completing her law degree and has been working in a nonprofit and is now elected as a representative on the municipal council

The next leg of her trip was to return to Heart of Mercy in San Pedro Sula, Honduras. In 1998, she had left El Salvador to live and work at a house that cared lovingly for

The children are residents of Heart of Mercy where Sister Diane ministered in the late 1990s. The hands represent living and de-ceased residents and staff of Heart of Mercy

Continued on next page

L-R: Sisters Eva Lallo and Diane Clyne. Eva ministered at the Heart of Mercy for many years.


children with HIV/AIDS. Deaths were frequent, but there was also community with house founders Sisters Masbely del Cid and Sandra Hernandez. She joined them in their ministry in a country overrun with the disease but frantic to keep it secret.

On her recent visit, she found that because of drugs, fewer children have a death sentence. Now 30 children live in the expanded House and there is a house for teens. The transmission of HIV from mother to baby can now be prevented, and the sisters have pioneered in educating school communities. “There is still shame about HIV/AIDS and a need for greater public education,” Diane said, “but there have been great strides since I lived there.”

One of the most hope-filled experiences was her return to The Weavers of Dreams, a credit union for women’s businesses created after Hurricane Mitch (Oct. 2000) by Associates Nelly del Cid and Aida Gonzales. “It was so inspiring to be with them last year,” she said. “They had just received funding, so they were doing strategic planning. Besides forming credit unions and training for small business, they have created a social network that supports the women. They provide spiritual enrichment, body work, reiki, and massage. That center, which was under construction when I was there, is amazing and now fully functioning.”

The Weavers of Dreams, a credit union for women's businesses created after Hurricane Mitch, is now thriving.

Remembering Ministry, cont.

Read Diane's narrative in the current ¡VIVA! Mercy about her pilgrimage last December to El Salvador and a visit to Honduras where she witnessed the oppression of the current Honduran government.


Dialogue Sought for "Mercy Stopped"

"Tough laws... demean human beings by isolating the offender from the community."

by Sister Margretta Dwyer

In the last issue of Mercy Connection, Sister Margretta Dwyer wrote an opinion piece on the treatment of sexual offenders. Out of her 33 years of experience as a therapist and faculty member at the University of Minnesota Medical School Program in Human Sexuality, she has come to the conclusion that lack of mercy in sentencing offenders has led to increased sexual offending in society and more violence.

She wrote: Unless we reduce the stigma attached to pedophilia and other sexual problems, we will continue to have more people untreated. Families have said that because of the lack of caring and derision, they would not report a family member, which means new abuse continues. To end this cycle, it becomes necessary to see offenders as persons…persons with sexual problems, not objects to be disposed of. It is known that support systems help a person lessen their chances for reoffending. Ostracizing and name-calling does not help. Sadly, labeling a person a monster, predator, deviant, or “dirty old man” influences whether persons are going to come forth for help or not.

The grief and horror of the recent case of the young women violated and held captive in Cleveland has captured the public’s attention. The case has brought more confusion by classifying all people with sexual problems in the same category.

Margretta invites opinions, questions, dialogue, and will respond with her thoughts on the issue of treatment of people with sexual problems. The questions and comments can be anonymous. You are invited to email her c/o [email protected].

Question in response to Margretta’s previous article:Q. “It is not known by most that sex offenders are the second least to reoffend.” Margretta, when I read this statement in your article, I wondered about the pedophiles who were moved from place to place and reoffended. Please explain. Thanks for your great work for so many years!A. Good question, Sister.The data refers to those who have been arrested, charged, and helped, then returned to the community. Those who were moved around never got arrested or help of any kind...just moved, which aided their chance to offend again and again. Margretta

Can we do better in dealing with sexual offenders?

mailto:[email protected]


Chicago Archives

The Chicago Archives has a variety of interesting and significant treasures. Some are located within the Archives, and others are on loan to Chicago ministries.

Heritage and Meeting Room (left)The Chicago Archives includes the artifacts and documents for the Sisters of Mercy from the Midwest (Illinois, Iowa and Wisconsin), 1846 to the present. The Heritage and Meeting Room contains furnishings, exhibits, pictures and objects from the original sisters and ministries

Five Piece Irish Silver Set (1802-1829) – A gift from Anne Cleary Templeton to the Sisters of Mercy, who taught at St. Xavier Academy in 1879

Two claw feet walnut cabinet – A gift from Bishop P. J. Muldoon, bishop of Rockford IL, in 1920, the cabinet houses the silver set. Bishop Muldoon’s blood sister was Sister M. Irene Muldoon, a member of Chicago Westside. Also, the Sisters of Mercy came from Council Bluffs, Iowa, to form a new foundation in Aurora, a city in the Rockford Diocese. Bishop Muldoon expressed his gratitude to the sisters for their care for the aged and mentally ill in that diocese.

Stained Glass Window (on loan)This stained glass window was from the Sisters of Mercy Convent Chapel at Saint Xavier College at 4900 Cottage Grove, Chicago. After the College was sold, items like the stained glass window were picked up by antique dealers, and the sisters lost track of them. Many years later, a former student and friend of the sisters called the Chicago Mercy archivist to report sighting the window in an antiques dealer’s shop on Wells Street in Chicago. It had been purchased from a dealer in New Orleans, LA. The window was “returned” to the Sisters of Mercy, Chicago Regional Community on Nov. 11, 1991.

On July 1, 2005, the window was leased to Saint Xavier University for display. The lease continues on a yearly basis until terminated by either party. The window was a gift in honor of Mother Sophia Mitchell (1936) by Mercy Federation.

By Sister Joella Cunnane


Sister Mary LaSalette Trevillyan

Sister Charmaine Jayawardene

Sister Charmaine migrated to the United States in 1974 from Sri Lanka, formerly known as Ceylon, the pearl of the Indian Ocean. The daughter of a college professor, she came from a world of education. She received a B.A. in English literature and a fellowship in speech and drama from Trinity College of London. She taught English and education in high school and then became a broadcaster for the Sri Lanka Broadcasting Corporation. However, when she came to the U.S., she became a banker, as she found it difficult to get into broadcasting with her British accent. She was an assistant vice president and manager for Private Banking Operations and International Banking Operations for Bank of America NT & SA in San Francisco. She managed a unit of four supervisors and 50 people in the day-to-day operations of funds transfers audit and investigations. She was also responsible for investigating money laundering and reporting of unclaimed property to the federal government.

She left the corporate world in 1995, and after two years of discernment, she entered the contemplative order of the Carmelites in Santa Clara. However in 2003, she left the order, and, in 2004, she entered the active contemplatives of the Sisters of Mercy. She is now a presenter for Contemplative Outreach Ltd., a spiritual director, and a presenter of retreats and workshops. Her current ministry is at Mercy San Juan Hospital working with pre-natal and post-natal women in recovery.

Tall and regal, but with an inviting smile and outgoing personality, Sister Mary LaSalette has been responsible for many young women entering the Mercy Community. After the challenge of teaching sixth-grade boys at St. Joseph’s Military Academy in Belmont, CA, she taught business at the all-girls Bishop Conaty High School in Los Angeles. There she became legendary for her affirming, supportive presence among the students.

As one jubilarian recently recalled, “Sister LaSalette, who was my shorthand teacher, asked me, ‘Have you thought about being a Sister?’” The invitation brought the young woman into Mercy. But there were plenty of less solemn interactions too, like the time LaSalette somehow arranged for a rather disaffected class to gain chemistry credit by formulating cosmetics in the lab!

continued next page


Sister Frances Crean

Note: Faces of Mercy from Cedar Rapids,Detroit and Omaha will be featured in the next Mercy Connection.

Sister Frances reflected on her path to Mercy:I come from a family of elementary, high school and college teachers. Two of my great-grandmothers taught. My parents were teachers and my only sibling is a teacher. I followed their footsteps!

I attended Mother McAuley High School (1956-1960). The sisters were very well-prepared teachers. I wanted to join in their work, so I entered the Sisters of Mercy after graduation. I earned a B.A. at Saint Xavier University in 1966, an M.S. at Purdue University in 1971, a Ph.D. in inorganic chemistry at Illinois Institute of Technology in 1979, and a master's in pastoral studies at Loyola University in Chicago in 1992. I taught fourth grade in the inner city one year, three years at Saint Patrick’s High School and two years at Mother McAuley High School. Then I moved on to teaching at Saint Xavier University where I have been since 1971.

An alumna of Conaty (then Catholic Girls’ High School), LaSalette had entered the Sisters of Mercy in 1942, taking first vows in Burlingame in 1945. She studied business at San Jose State, received her master’s degree in education at Loyola University, Los Angeles, in 1961, and a few years later, attended the Lumen Vitae International Catechetical Institute in Brussels for a certificate in pastoral care.

She used all these skills in her varied roles as teacher, formation director guiding both postulants and novices, and Secretary General of the Burlingame Community. After serving in Burlingame for a number of years, LaSalette took up a new ministry in pastoral care at Mercy Hospital Bakersfield and then Mercy Hospital San Diego, where she remained for 22 years in a variety of positions including chaplain and mission services director. At age 80, she retired to Marian Oaks in Burlingame, where she enjoys having leisure time for prayer, reading, visiting, and taking walks on the beautiful grounds.

When asked to comment on the occasion of her 70th jubilee, LaSalette said, “I have loved everything I was asked to do! Thank you, Lord, for everything, and for all the Sisters and other people who touched my life.”

continued next page

Sister LaSalette, cont.


Mercy Connection is published by the Sisters of Mercy West Midwest Community Communications Office, 7262 Mercy Road • Omaha, NE 68124 • (402) 393-8225 • www.mercywestmidwest.org

Director of CommunicationsSandy Goetzinger-ComerEditor: Elizabeth Dossa

Contributing Writers: Sister Lois Burroughs, Sister Joella Cunnane, Sister Margretta Dwyer, Patti Kantor, Sister Ellen FitzGerald

Graphic DesignElizabeth Dossa

MercyConnection

April/May 2013

Sisters of Mercy West Midwest

Community

Chemistry is fun, and it is challenging! There has to be a God who revels in complex living beings and materials with so many uses! Chemists have an unending supply of puzzles needing solving, and the complexity of solved puzzles is awesome.

I have experienced many changes in my lifetime of learning and teaching: As a student at SXU, I did lab experiments on instruments at Argonne Laboratory and got to look into the room with the huge new computers. As my thesis was being typed on a typewriter, a spectrophotometer with the acronym RSM was showcased at a convention at McCormack Place. With that instrument, I could have completed my six-year research project in a matter of months and analyzed the data at a more sophisticated level.

As a teacher, I used Apple II computers, so my students could actually see the pH titration curve on the screen as they did the titration. Learning became so much easier with personal computers in the 1980s!

I am on the Mother McAuley High School Board of Trustees. The dedication of our lay supporters is truly inspiring! And I am thrilled that some McAuley alumnae want to support a course in finances for the student body. If we want our graduates to donate, we need to teach our students how to earn extra money with their salaries.

Sister Frances, cont.

Copyright 2013 Sisters of Mercy West Midwest Community • Mercy Connection articles may be reproduced with written permission from the Sisters of Mercy West Midwest Communications Office. Direct reprint requests to: [email protected]

mercy connection april may 2013

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