From Our Congregational Leader

We hear so much about collaboration these days. Collaboration – working together to complete a project or to create a solution or to fulfill a mission. Perhaps we’ve even thought or lamented how much we need persons in positions of authority to collaborate with those “across the aisle,” to work together to craft solutions for the troubles we encounter in this world of ours. We remind ourselves and others that we cannot “do it alone.”

Yes, collaboration is an attractive way to respond to needs we encounter. But I have been asking myself, “What kind of collaborator might I be? What is necessary to be a beneficial collaborative partner?” Consider with me three types of collaboration – alloy, catalyst, and cayenne pepper cheese straws.

An alloy blends two or more metals to gain strength. Perhaps the alloy that comes most quickly to mind is steel – a blend of iron, carbon, and often chromium. It was steel that first made skyscrapers possible. Iron alone was too friable; it could not support the multi-storied structures imagined. Working together, blending the qualities that supported and strengthened each other, the alloy relationship made possible outcomes and applications individual elements alone could not support.

A catalyst is an outside substance that precipitates or speeds up a chemical or biological or social reaction, without being changed or consumed itself. Catalyst is also defined as a person whose nature, enthusiasm, or energy causes others to become more friendly, enthusiastic, or energetic. So, a catalyst, in the presence of other elements or in a situation requiring a response, collaborates to initiate or accelerate change or growth.

All very scientific; how do cayenne pepper cheese straws belong? I make a tasty, baked, crispy snack known as “cheese straws”: 3 cups of extra sharp shredded cheddar, 3 cups of flour, and 1 cup of butter form the dough. Those ingredients alone make a pleasant crispy snack – but add just 1/8 of a teaspoon of cayenne pepper to those seven cups of other ingredients, and pleasant becomes spicy, memorable, and quite addictive. That’s 1/8 of a teaspoon collaborating with over 300 teaspoons of other ingredients to make a significant difference. Quite a huge impact for such a tiny ingredient; clearly the weight of a collaborative effort cannot be measured by the size of the offering. Rather it is that mysterious interaction of all involved that makes the difference.

As you imagine the myriad ways you might collaborate to help animate your mission or your dreams, ponder how your gifts might be used – will you be an alloy, a catalyst, or the cayenne pepper in the cheese straws?!

Blessings for your endeavors this Lent. -Sister Sharon Sullivan, OSU

Ursulines Alive is published by the Ursuline Sisters of Mount Saint Joseph, Maple Mount, Ky. Three issues are published each calendar year.

EDITORS: Director of Mission Advancement/Communications ....... Dan Heckel, OSUA Communications Specialist/Graphic Design Jennifer Kaminski, OSUA

ADVANCEMENT STAFF: Director of Development ................................................... Carol Braden-Clarke

Assistant Sister Amelia Stenger, OSU Coordinator of Ursuline Partnerships Doreen Abbott, OSUA

Advancement Assistant ....................................... Sister Mary McDermott, OSU Contributing Writer Sister Ruth Gehres, OSU

COVER: Left: Ursuline Associate Martha House, left, shucks corn with Ursuline Sister Marie Bosco Wathen in July 2018. The corn grown at the Mount helps feed the Sisters and staff year round. Right: Sister Mary Lois Speaks, left, and Associate Phyllis Troutman hold up a sign welcoming people to the Mount Saint Joseph Picnic in 2016.

We, the Ursuline Sisters of Mount Saint Joseph, sustained by prayer and vowed life in community, proclaim Jesus through education and Christian formation in the spirit of our founder, Saint Angela Merici.

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... In the spirit of Saint Angela Merici

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MSJ

By Dan

There’s an adage that says, “If you want to go quickly, go alone. If you want to go farther, go together.”

The Ursuline Sisters of Mount Saint Joseph have decided they want to go farther.

In the spring of 2021, the committee planning the Sisters’ Chapter of Affairs this summer – consisting of Sisters Sharon Sullivan, Julia Head, Martha Keller and Mary Ellen Backes –asked the community for input on areas to focus on. Several Sisters identified “collaboration” as a need, specifically with other religious communities or diocesan programs. Group discussions during the Chapter meeting that summer led to a decision to make expanding collaboration one of the focus areas for the coming few years.

“I felt encouraged by the community to expand our collaboration beyond supporting the work of the diocese,” Sister Sharon said. “We want to strengthen and establish collaboration with like-minded groups, in both Catholic and civil service.”

The year following the Chapter gathering, Sister Sharon was elected congregational leader. She and the rest of the new Leadership Council are in the early stages of determining how to match the Sisters’ strengths with other groups to serve the common good.