Circles of Grace
United States Area Leadership Team
Mary Lou Sullivan, SUSC & Kathleen Corrigan, SUSC
Dear Friends,
The theme of this issue of Response reflects the many circles of grace in our lives that are facets of the deep oneness in God’s infinite life and love which embraces all. It is a joining of hearts and spirits in a dance of mutually caring relationships that spiral outward generating goodness, welcome, hope and possibility. It is so healthy and helpful to pause and wonder at the mystery of these Spirit connections that fill our lives and become visible signs of God’s Reign.
In this Response we have gathered some items that we consider circles of grace for us that we wish to share with you. They include stories that span years as well as recent happenings. All of them reflect relationships of mutual blessings. Among them are stories of the grace-filled lives of our Sisters who in the past few months have crossed the threshold of death, to join the Communion of Saints, leaving in there wake so many embraced by their love and service. You’ll also find accounts of connections of a global nature which both amaze and call for celebration: as well as seeds of mission planted, handed on and now rendering an amazing harvest affecting the lives of many. All of them sustained in networks of compassion and love.
Finally, we are ever aware of the ‘circle of grace’ you form for us as our partners in mission, supporting and enabling so much of what we do. The sharings of this issue are interspersed with your names, in deep gratitude for your contribution to the fostering of a spirit of ‘holy union’ for and with our world.
Holding you in gratitude and wishing you every blessing.
Love, Katheen and Mary Lou
Kathleen Corrigan, SUSC
Mary Lou Sullivan, SUSC
Director's Letter
Kenneth Gustin Director of Mission Advancement and Communications
Dear Friends,
Our theme this issue, “Circles of Grace”, brought to mind wonderful memories of an annual camping trip which spanned three generations of my family: my father, my brothers, and our sons. The highlight was always the nighttime campfires. We would sit in a circle around a fire we built and tended together listening to it hiss, crackle, and pop, warm and safe within the circle of light and heat it generated.
We shared stories and jokes. Some stories were familiar to my brothers and I, as they were shared memories, often my father would join in having remembered those days still. Our sons listened carefully, learning about sides of their father, grandfather, and uncles they had not known. When my father would tell stories of his childhood and memories of his parents, our sons’ great grandparents whom they had never met, his stories might as well have been about knights and dragons to our sons. They struggled to picture a time without cars, TV, or the internet. Their questions were fascinating, revealing the fact that their world was so very different that the ones us “old folks” knew so well.
There within the warm glow of the campfire we sat in a circle, weaving the common fabric of our families, in what seemed an almost sacred sharing of our life experiences, and deepening our understanding of each other. Beyond the fire’s light was the dark, cold woods, mysterious and a bit frightening. But here in the light we were safe, and the bonds between us grew stronger every night.
Our father has long passed away, and our sons are grown and moved out. But those nightly circles of grace have stayed with me, and our sons. From time to time someone will mention one of those trips fondly, grateful for such precious memories which some were not even aware were being forged at the time.
Let us be mindful that our lives are filled with such circles of grace within our churches, schools, workplaces, and neighborhoods. We are all kin to one another, no matter how different our worlds seem to be, and the more we take the time to get to know one another, the stronger the fabric of our society and world will be, as we move closer to achieving Jesus’ dream for us, “That they may be one as you and I are one.”
With fondness, Kenneth Gustin
Transforming GraceMoving Towards Oneness
For the last year, Catholic Sisters from around the U.S. have been working with a dedicated team from the Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR) to help reduce the increasing polarization, division, and even violence which has been growing in our nation and in our world. The initiative is called Transforming Grace.
In April of this year over 250 people gathered in Pittsburgh, PA. The group was made up of leadership, communicators, and justice and peace promoters from dozens of women’s religious congregations. Over a period of four days, we reflected on our own biases and prejudices which often cause these divisions and tried to discern a pathway forward which would help to mend the fabric of our nation and our world.
In small group discussions we reflected and prayed about many things, including the fact that the media bubbles (circles) which have been created by various factions in our culture, have increasingly worked to pit us against one another, finding or creating “hot button” issues designed to provide justification to divide us. Soon, it becomes the ONLY thing that matters, and can be based on race, gender, religious affiliation, ethnic background or climate care.
We also realized that most of us share many of the same hopes and aspirations, and the few on
which we differ are simply that, just something upon which we disagree. If I like chocolate ice cream and you like strawberry, that does not make us enemies. But if one of us decides to make our favorite flavor of ice cream the single most important thing which determines if we can remain friends, well I think we have a problem.
Jesus’ prayer for us was “…that they may be one as you and I are one”, and his command to us was to “Love one another as I have loved you”, and to “love your neighbor as yourself”. In Pittsburgh we committed to deliberately reminding each other as often as we can of these and so many other teachings of our faith and how important it is to truly internalize them during this storm we are in the midst of.
Our challenge moving forward is to be open to a wisdom of the heart that transforms the way we relate to each other, healing divisions and promoting a deeper sense of communion. Be assured that other religious congregations are also supporting this initiative, and have launched their own campaigns to help remind their friends and supporters that we are all God’s children, and we are called to love our neighbor as ourselves.
In the one big circle of God’s family there is no “us” or “them”.
Perhaps you have already seen our weekly Facebook posts earlier this year which included reflection sheets with embedded video and music links. Since the April conference, Holy Union Sisters have started a new campaign with weekly posts with a simple quote from scripture designed to inspire love, kindness and unity. Each week, one quote is overlaid on a video of a peaceful, glowing earth turning in space, a reminder that we share a common home, and so it is important to learn to live in peace, and that is God’s will for us. Over time we pray that hearts will be changed as more and more people are drawn to the beauty of love and peace rather than the ugliness of hate and conflict.
We invite you to ask God for your own Transformation of Consciousness.
Over the upcoming months, we will offer Facebook posts, a podcast episode on this topic, “What’s New?” posts on our website’s home page, and updates in our Response newsletters. Please join us in this largescale effort. We invite you to share our Facebook posts with your friends. Above all pray daily for justice, peace, healing, and an intentional effort to create the kind of world Jesus wants for us. Be the change you want to see.
Pictured on these pages are some of the Sisters and lay people who attended our conference in Pittsburgh in April.
Offering and accepting blessings from those at our tables for guidance on this undertaking
Attendees dance to "We are Going"
Ken Gustin, Sr. Mary Lou Simcoe, SUSC, and Sr. Mary Lou Sullivan, SUSC Sr. Carol Zinn blessing attendees with holy water
Over 250 attendees!
Full Circle! From the Caribbean to
We recently became aware of a wonderous and completely unplanned interplay between the ministries of the Holy Union Sisters and the Holy Family Sisters which spans three centuries, two continents, and several generations of Sisters. This confluence of events was brought to light through work being done in recent years by the Mother Helena Fund. What we discovered left us awestruck.
Some years ago, the Holy Union Sisters in the United States created the Mother Helena Fund, named to honor the Belgian sister who founded our congregation here. The aim of the Fund was to grant financial help to underfunded ministries and to assist immigrant families. One facet of the Mother Helena Fund partners us with another congregation or an organization needing financial help to minister to the poor, especially women and children.
In 2019, a Mother Helena Partnership was set up between the Holy Family Sisters of Bafoussam, Cameroon, and the United States Area to help them continue their ministry to the displaced families of Fossang, Cameroon. But the relationship between the two congregations pre-dates 2019 by many decades. In 1929 our sisters left St. Thomas in the Virgin Islands, where they had been ministering at St. Joseph School since 1890, and arrived in Dschang, Cameroon in 1931. Here they undertook the religious formation of young Cameroonian women who began the Holy Family congregation. Our friendship and collaboration have taken many forms over the last ninety-four years.
Clearly God’s hand
Sr. Alfred Thereis at St. Joseph
Cameroon and Back Again
Fossang is a village neighboring the western English-speaking provinces of Cameroon, a bi-lingual nation. The political situation in Cameroon’s English-speaking provinces has deteriorated into violence in recent years and whole families have fled to more stable areas of the country. Fossang, where the Holy Family Sisters minister, has not experienced political strife nor the breakdown of its school system, as had been the case elsewhere. Families seeking safety and education find both in Fossang with the Holy Family Sisters. The Mother Helena Partnership with the Holy Family Sisters was renewed in 2023, assuring continued support of this project amidst the political turmoil and violence in Cameroon.
The Superior General of the Holy Family Sisters, who had managed the Fossang project, was suddenly taken ill and died during 2023. The newly elected Superior, Sr. Marie Adele Gatsi, who had been missioned in the Virgin Islands and teaching at the same school where Holy Union first arrived in 1890 recently left her ministry there and returned to Cameroon to take on the responsibility of her congregation. Their Generalate is in the city of Dschang in the Diocese of Bafoussam, Cameroon, where Holy Union Sisters founded our first mission in 1931 and where they prepared the first Holy Family Sisters for religious life.
From our four founding Sisters in 1931, there are now more than one hundred Cameroonian Holy Union Sisters and as many Holy Family Sisters active in the Cameroon church. How amazing is that?
So Holy Union’s St. Thomas mission in 1890 was called to Cameroon in 1931 where they founded the Holy Family Sisters there, who were in turn called to St. Thomas in 2014, and then called their newly elected Superior General there back to Cameroon (2024)! We served in the SAME towns/villages, and even the same schools, on both sides of the Atlantic across three centuries!
is evident in this amazing swirl of ministries across time. Is that not Full Circle?
School in St. Thomas (circa 1890s)
Mother Marie Adele Gatsi (circa 2024)
Our Circle o f Friends &Donors
Be assured of our enormous gratitude for our friends and supporters listed in the following pages. Those listed below have supported our works and ministries during our last fiscal year, Sept. 1, 2022 through August 31, 2023. May God continue to shower you with graces.
AMrs. Janice Abreu
Ms. Lorraine Accardi
Vivian Addrisi
Margaret Admirand •
Mrs. Mary Affronti •
Maria Teresa Aiello •
Ms. Martha M. Albert
Mrs. Margaret Aleixo •
Marie P. Alessi
Ms Carole Aliskevicz •
Ann & James Allen
June Allen •
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Mary Eileen Ambrosini •
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Anonymous
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GENERATIONS OF BLESSINGS LEGACY SOCIETY MEMBERS
Bertha Beauchemin
Doris Beaudoin
Lucile Bernier
Letitia M. Brennan
Richard Briand
Elizabeth Brown-Ryan
Rev. John J. Casey
Catherine C. Connelly
Msgr. Raymond T. Considine
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ORGANIZATIONS
Daughters of Isabella Network for Good
Putnam Inv. Mgt.
Rich in Mercy Institute
SCHOOLS AND PARISHES
Immaculate Conception School
The Lighthouse School
Sodality of St. Leo's Church
St Nicholas and St William Parish
St. Joseph - St. Mary Immaculate Columbiettes
St. Mary, Ayer / St. Anthony, Shirley St. William's Church
DISTRIBUTION OF DONOR GIFTS
Fiscal Year 2023
SOURCE OF GIFT INCOME
Fiscal Year 2023
An Ever-Widening Circle
LIGHTHOUSE SCHOOL PROVIDES A WELCOMING ENVIRONMENT
Like a pebble tossed into a pond, the ripples moving outward from its center point seem to travel endlessly. This was the image that occurred to us during a recent visit to Lighthouse School in North Chelmsford, MA. This remarkable facility has grown for decades from a very humble beginning.
In 1967 Sister Theodora Martel (Sr. Gabrielle Lucie), a Holy Union Sister, set up a room in the basement of The Holy Union Retirement home in Lowell, MA with the intention of providing a few students with learning disabilities the specialized support they needed to grow academically. Tuition initially was $1/day. In that era, alternative resources were nonexistent in the area, and word spread quickly. Originally known as “Holy Union Special School”, the room was soon at its capacity and so the group moved to a new space in the Read Building at the Middlesex County Training School in Lowell in 1977, where it continued to expand its staff and resources to meet the growing need. By 1979 they expanded again taking over a facility on Old Westford Rd. in Chelmsford and continued to expand the services it offered and kinds of assistance and support it could provide.
In 1974, Dr. Michael Pappafagos first met Sister Theodora and was quickly drawn to her mission. He became the first Head of School at Lighthouse as Holy Union began to transition the management of the school to a lay staff who could carry forward a vision based on Holy Union’s spirituality and love for education. For 47 years
he shepherded the school through several moves and eventually the purchase of the land and construction of the first building in North Chelmsford. In a recent discussion he shared these thoughts. “Prior to 1973, there was no legislation that ensured that children with atypical needs received educational services. As a result, they were often kept at home or put in substandard locations in public schools where they were isolated from other children. The Sisters, and Sister Theodora in particular, recognized the need for these children to be educated and, more importantly, to be accepted and loved…. I have been blessed to have shared with the Holy Union Sisters the joy of helping so many disenfranchised children find the dignity, self-worth and self-love that they so much deserve. We at Lighthouse School strive to exemplify the Holy Union values that are embedded in our shared mission.”
By 1989, the school had 120 students and eleven classrooms, and had been incorporated as Lighthouse School, Inc., offering a broad spectrum of curriculumbased, interdisciplinary services including within the educational, vocational, communication, clinical, neuromotor, and medical areas. After moving to a 46,000 square foot public elementary school which was no longer being used, Lighthouse School’s students eventually grew to 200 by 1997.
A new state of the art purpose-built facility on a 33-acre parcel began construction in 1997 in North Chelmsford.
Dr. Bartis, Mary Lee, and Kristin Benoit, taking Sr. Joan Guertin and Ken Gustin on a tour of building under construction
Sr. Joan Guertin finds where we are on the architectural plans!
Circle at Lighthouse School
ENVIRONMENT FOR CHILDREN WITH SPECIAL NEEDS
The new building offered 137 rooms designed to support the array of advanced services the school had become nationally recognized for offering. In 2019, Sr. Beatrice Gerard, the last Holy Union Sister to work at Lighthouse School, fully retired, ending our 52-year direct involvement there since its founding. The new facility was extraordinary and well suited to project Lighthouse school into the future, as demand for services were ever-expanding.
Dr. Scott Bartis became the new Head of School in 2021, and in 2023 the school broke ground on a second large building on the same campus on Wellman Ave. in North Chelmsford, with a projected occupation date in mid/late 2024. In May, Dr. Bartis was kind enough to give us a tour of both the current school as well as the new building under construction. This new facility will allow their two existing campuses to be combined into one. This will allow the older and the younger populations, who were divided between the two locations, to mix while keeping them separated into age-appropriate activities and work, creating one interconnected school community.
It is clear that Dr. Bartis and the members of his staff including: Mary Lee, Coordinator for Program Operation; Kristen Benoit, Administrative Assistant; Michelle Figucia, Executive Assistant; and John Tarmey, Director of Operations, still exemplify the spirit of Holy Union, creating an ever-growing family, united as one in a loving and caring community. The instructors and students, radiate a joyfulness, as together they work to
overcome obstacles which can be emotional, physical, psychological or neurological, as they prepare for high school and beyond. Today, the school draws students from almost 500 school districts across New England, who help fund its operations.
Dr. Bartis shared his thoughts about the school’s future, as the new facility draws closer to completion. “We are all excited to see this beautiful building, this literal foundation of our future, rise from the ashes of covid. And yet, in a more meaningful, fundamental sense, our foundation has never been about our physical surroundings. Our foundation always has been, and always will be, our team of people devoted to the teaching, treating, and healing of children. As we look to the future, we remember our past. We are proud, and indeed blessed, to carry forward the love revealed by Sister Theodora and the Sisters of the Holy Union.”
Sr. Joan Guertin, SUSC, who remains our liaison with Lighthouse School, said, “Lighthouse School is such a wonderful example of how Holy Union accomplishes its mission. We see a need which we can address and set to work doing so. When the need outgrows our ability to meet it, we partner with those with the skills and resources to carry it forward. Michael Pappafagos was the ideal person to pass the school on to in the 1970’s, and Scott Bartis was similarly suited to carry the school forward from Michael in 2021. Together we can accomplish extraordinary things.”
Lighthouse School's playground
Holy Union Updates
Entered into Eternal Life
Sister Mary Ellen Donohue SUSC (Sr. Catherine Michael): May 15,1933 – April 7, 2024
Mary Ellen joined the Holy Union Sisters on February 2, 1951, and pronounced her final vows on August 22, 1959. Early in her religious life, Sr. Mary Ellen taught junior high classes in parish schools in Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, and Rhode Island. She also served as principal at schools in New York and New Jersey. Later, she worked with teenage youth as residential director of Boys Hope in Staten Island, a Jesuit-sponsored program for boys in need of academic and personal support. She was a member of the administrative and teaching staff at the San Miguel School in Providence, a Lasallian middle school, which provides education for boys from diverse and challenging backgrounds. More recently, she ministered to persons in their later years, as a member of the pastoral team for the former Holy Union Sisters Retirement Community in Fall River and later as a pastoral minister at Catholic Memorial Home in Fall River. Sr. Mary Ellen was also an early catalyst to incorporate Associates into the Holy Union Family.
Sister Hannah Collins SUSC (Sr. Nora William): February 17, 1934 – January 6, 2024
Sister Hannah joined the Holy Union Sisters on February 2, 1951, and professed her final vows on August 22, 1959. Her teaching ministry spanned over forty years in parish schools in Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, and New York. She served as Formation Director for the Holy Union Sisters who were part of an intercongregational community of sisters studying in Washington D.C. She later moved to New York City where she was the receptionist in the Cardinal’s Office for the Archdiocese of New York and later was secretary to the Vicars for Religious in the Archdiocese. In November of 2021 Sister Hannah joined the Holy Union Sisters residing at Prosper Fall River. At the time of her death, she had been a Holy Union Sister for seventy-two years. As the Magi were guided by the light of a star during their long journey to Bethlehem, throughout her long life, Hannah was guided by the light of faith and arrived at a place of everlasting peace on the Feast of the Epiphany.
Sister
Jean Carpinelli SUSC (Sister Emma Francis): March 29, 1933
- December 13, 2023
Sister Jean Carpinelli, SUSC, a resident of Prosper at Fall River, died December 13th at the age of 90. Sister Jean joined the Holy Union Sisters on June 26, 1950, and professed her perpetual vows on August 22, 1959. At the time of her death, Sr. Jean had been a Holy Union Sister for 73 years. For over thirty-five years, Sr. Jean taught middle and junior high classes in parish schools staffed by her community in Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, and New York. When she left teaching, Sr. Jean joined the staff of the Jesuit Program for Living and Learning on Staten Island, New York where she served as a residential counselor. In 1989 Sr. Jean joined a Holy Union formation community that was established in Brockton, MA. While in Brockton, she participated in a YMCA program to assist homeless families and was a teacher in the General Education Diploma class. She also taught language arts at Sacred Heart School in Brockton. From 1992 to 1997 she was a member of the pastoral team for the retirement community of the Holy Union Sisters at Sacred Hearts Convent in Fall River. She then worked at the day center of the Swansea Council on Aging. Sr. Jean retired in 2006 and volunteered in the Holy Union Sisters Archives Office and at Prosper, Fall River. As we bid farewell to Sister Jean, we hold warm memories of the light she brought to so many.
Sr. Carol with Sr. Modesta and Sr. Scolastica
Sr. Carol Regan’s Trip to Tanzania
Sister Carol Regan spent the month of May with our sisters in the Area of Tanzania. She had first visited Tanzania in 2002 in her role as congregation leader and was last there in 2010. To return after a fourteen-year absence was an astounding and exciting experience! Women who were just joining the congregation on her first visit are about to celebrate their silver jubilees as Holy Union Sisters; they are now the leaders of the Area as well as experienced educators, administrators, and pastoral ministers. A significant number of younger women have joined the Area since 2014. Several are in the initial stages of formation for religious life in our
Congregation as novices or postulants. Others are young professed religious, continuing their professional preparation for new ministries through their studies in such diverse fields as theology, accounting, or the religious formation of future members; still others are in their first ministries as teachers in Holy Union and other schools and centers, catechists, and pastoral minsters. The Area’s sponsored ministries include the co-ed Debrabant Secondary School, the Holy Union PrePrimary and Primary Montessori School and the Matumaini Centre for Disabled Children and their families.
“This was a wonderful time for me to go to Tanzania,” Sister Carol says, “because the Area will celebrate 50 years of Holy Union presence and mission in Tanzania on June 24th, our Holy Founder’s Feast. At such a time, we naturally look back to what has been and my purpose in going to Tanzania was to offer our sisters there a series of seminars on our congregation’s beginnings and its spirituality, reflecting with them on the world into which Father Debrabant was born, his life story and the stories of six women who are our ancestors in Holy Union, our congregation’s name and its charism. Scattered throughout these reflections were contemporary stories and concerns: the similarities and differences between Father Debrabant’s world and our own; how tensions can arise between good people; the importance of names, especially our name as a religious congregation; even the richness the new cosmology brings to our understanding of ‘holy union’. We were, for several days, an international community of Holy Union learners.” Sister Carol brought wonderful memories of spending May 2024 among our Tanzanian sisters home to the US Area of the congregation. Often we hear that the congregation’s future is in Africa and in one sense that is probably true. But when is the future? Eleanor Roosevelt once insisted that “the future is now.” And Holy Union Sisters today, young and old, experienced religious and enthusiastic newcomers, are building it together, remembering the past with gratitude, living the present passionately and attentively, and moving toward the future with fidelity and hope.
Lenten Bags of Love for Victims of
Human Trafficking
In the Catholic tradition, the three pillars of Lent are almsgiving, prayer and fasting. Each Lent Holy Union Sisters and Associates join in a common almsgiving project. This year their contributions went to the Bags of Love, a project of the Boston Anti-Trafficking Coalition. The Coalition is made up of six congregations of women religious in the Boston area. For several years Sister Mary Lou Simcoe has represented Holy Union on the Coalition. The Bags of Love began several years ago when participants at a Human Trafficking Symposium heard a panel of individuals who work with victims of human trafficking. After listening to these women, several in the audience asked: “What can we do to help?” A representative from the FBI Anti-Trafficking Office said that when victims are rescued, they come to a safe house bringing nothing but their wounded selves. So, the idea of preparing backpacks filled with necessities to help survivors on their long road to healing was born.
Coalition member Sister Marilyn McGoldrick CSJ enlisted the help of Sisters of St. Joseph living at their Brighton Motherhouse to fill the bags. With input from social workers and other professionals, they drew up a list of useful items to be included. In addition to clothing and toiletries, they added gift cards to area stores. Notes of encouragement from college student volunteers were also added. The Coalition has received touching notes of thanks from recipients. Initially the Bags of Love were distributed in the greater Boston area, but now requests are coming from groups in Maine, New Hampshire and Rhode Island. With their Lenten offering, the Holy Union Sisters and Associates are grateful to share in this worthwhile project.
Our Generalate Has Moved
In recent years we rented a part of a house in Rome that belonged to the Columban Fathers to serve as our Generalate. We were informed that they had decided to sell the property, which meant we needed to find a new location. Both the former and present General Councils did an extensive search over more than a year to find one. We are now able to share with you that our Holy Union Generalate is now located in a property belonging to the Good Shepherd Sisters at the following address: Holy Union Sisters | Via Nicola Fabrizi, 13 | 00153, Rome, Italy
Ironically there is another “circle” here. Our new Roman home is located in the same ‘Trastevere’ neighborhood, not far from Vatican City, in which we resided before moving to the Columban house.
Sisters Annemarie Eagan, Yvette Sam, Michele Totman, Caroline Njah