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55 and under article from Our Lady of Grace Monastery

By Grace, we the 55 year old and under sisters of Our Lady of Grace Monastery are involved in a variety of ministries, all of us with a deep desire to serve the people of God in Indianapolis, in a manner worthy of our rich Benedictine heritage and all for the Glory of God.

The 55 and under group live our monastic life today because of the faithfulness of the sisters that came before us). In referencing this picture, starting from the top row, top left, I will describe the ministries of the sisters: (I do not have the picture to post, so I posted Sister Mary Ann who was voted in for final vows on July 11, 2010. (Meg)

• Sr. Betty Jean Coveney is a massage therapist, spiritual director and musician/pianist.
• Sr. Geralyn Marie O’Connor is a perinatal nurse case manager, working with pregnant women through pregnancy and 6 weeks after delivery. Case management includes education, resource referral and advocacy to assist low-income women in obtaining quality care for themselves and their babies.
• Sr. Marie Therese Racine is a K-8 music teacher in a local Catholic grade school. She is an organ accompanist for the monastic community.
• Sr. Pamela Kay Doyle is an Indiana licensed educator and school administrator serving as the Director of Education at Transitional Assistance Services, a mental and behavioral health agency. She serves as an advocate for the under privileged, under served and troubled youth and teens to see that their educational needs are being met.
• Sr. Jennifer Mechtild Horner is the vocation director for Our Lady of Grace Monastery. Prior to this appointment, she served as a chaplain at a local university.
• Sr. Maureen Cooney works in the business office of Our Lady of Grace Monastery serving St. Paul Hermitage and the Benedict Inn Retreat & Conference Center.
• Sr. Susan Marie Lindstrom is a high school religion teacher at a local Catholic high school and chairman of the Religion Department at the school.
• Sr. Mary Ann Koetter is a surgical nurse at a local hospital.
• Sr. Sheila Fitzpatrick is our Director of Facilities for the Benedict Inn Retreat & Conference Center.
• Sr. Ann Patrice Papesh is the Director of Development for Our Lady of Grace Monastery.
• Postulant Heather Foltz entered Our Lady of Grace Monastery on September 7, 2009. She particularly enjoys reading to the Senior Sisters, learning about Benedictine life, experiencing Benedictine liturgy and helping around the monastery (she is an amazing bread and cookie maker). Prior to entering the monastery, she worked for an organization that serves the homeless population.
• Sr. Nicolette Etienne teaches 4th to 8th grade religion at a local Catholic grade school.
• Sr. Anne Frederick (beginning of bottom row left) is the Director of Initial Formation for the monastery. She also works part time at a local Catholic high school serving as the department chair in the math department.
• Sr. Cindy Freese is a psychiatric nurse on an inpatient unit at a local Catholic hospital.
• Sr. Julie Sewell works in the Development office and is the Guest Director for the monastery. She also facilitates a small group experience focusing on the writings of Thomas Merton.
• Sr. Cathy Anne Lepore is a licensed professional athletic trainer and serves as the monastery’s Director of Physical Therapy. She teaches theology at a local Catholic high school and leads praise and worship for all school liturgies.
• Sr. Helen Vermeulen is the MDS Coordinator at the St. Paul Hermitage conducting Medicaid reimbursement assessments.
• Sr. Kathleen Yeadon (not pictured) is a religion teacher at a local Catholic high school and also does outreach to the poor.

As you can see, the sisters are involved in a number of ministries serving every age group from the young in school to young adults, to retreatants, to the under-privileged and poor, to the elderly who receive massages or those that reside at the St. Paul Hermitage.

While involved in these various ministries, these sisters reflect on their dream for the future. As I was compiling the various responses from these sisters, one thing that gave me great hope is that all the concerns, challenges and desires for the future were essentially the same. To me, this reflected that as a group we have one monastic heart. With this one monastic heart, we know that we are united with our elders who have passed the monastic way on to us, and that we are united with those sisters that came before them and passed the monastic way on to them and back through history all the way to our founder St. Benedict. We realize that as we look ahead, we come from a tradition that has been a light for all ages and a light that guides our way today. As those that came before us, we desire to pass this tradition on to future generations of Benedictines.

As we look at the challenge of passing our monastic charism on to future generations, we see the following challenges:
• Declining numbers – fewer new members entering to carry the charism forward
• Carrying for the elderly sisters both financially and with current & declining membership numbers
• Financial resources to carry the monastery into the future
• Maintaining work/life balance as fewer sisters try to do the work of a larger community
• Given that we are involved in various ministries and stretched thin, working to maintain authentic community versus being just a group of individually focused people living under one roof.
• Possibility that our community (and other communities) may have to merge together in the future for viability
• Live counter-culturally and not be taken in by the culture. It is a challenge for us to counter materialism, a hectic pace and ego driven goals while living simply, slowing down, being guided by spiritual discernment and making prayer and our sacramental life the priority.
• The young people in our Church who are most active in their faith – and the ones that may seek out religious life – are looking for communities that really do stand out as living differently from the culture and that stay updated on and emphasize Church teachings. We must make sure that we are faithful to the monastic way and that the culture doesn’t creep into our practices.

We believe that these challenges are real and formidable. We also believe that we can chart a realistic course for the future that is true to our monastic charism of prayer, work and hospitality, but it will take the wisdom of all living generations of monastic’s, focused on the current realities of these challenges, to carry the monastic way into the future. We are aware that we are at one of those crossroads in monastic history where the future is not guaranteed – yet resoundedly and with one voice, we say yes to monastic life. Another thing that gave me great hope as I was reading these responses is that all sisters, as their primary concern, listed, as their hearts desire that one desire to live monastic life faithfully. Their chief concern and aim is to keep Benedictine life as the primary focus always. So, this generation of Benedictines can make this promise to our elders and monastic ancestors: each and every day, by grace, we shall live this monastic life faithful to this great gift passed on to us from St. Benedict and ultimately from God.