COLLABORATE

support these LCWR efforts, including a recent effort on behalf of the National Black Sisters’ Conference as it seeks to combat systemic violence against Black people.

As the Ursuline Sisters look for new ways to collaborate, here are some of the ways they currently serve with other groups:

After the Second Vatican Council put new emphasis on the role of the laity in the Catholic Church, the Ursuline Sisters began discussing how to incorporate lay people into the Ursuline mission. In the fall of 1983, the Ursuline Associate program was begun, under the direction of the late Sister Fran Wilhelm.

An Associate wants to be affiliated with the mission and the spirit of the Ursuline community; wants to share in the community’s goals, ideals, and challenges; and wishes to carry gospel living, as exemplified in the life of Saint Angela Merici, into his or her daily life. Associates share prayer, celebration and hospitality with the Ursuline community, while living their own lifestyles and spreading the spirit of Saint Angela in their workplace and environment.

Associates gather every summer with the Ursuline Sisters at Mount

Saint Joseph for prayer, formation and fun during Associates and Sisters Day, a tradition begun in 1985. There are roughly 330 Ursuline Associates today, with the majority in Kentucky, and others in at least a dozen states. Some of them periodically meet in groups in Kentucky and Kansas.

Lobbying the United Nations to influence international policy is difficult for individual groups. That’s why in June 2002, seven religious communities formed a nongovernmental organization named UNANIMA International, combining the word anima, from the Latin word for feminine spirit, with UN for the United Nations. The smallest of these communities was the Ursuline Sisters of Mount Saint Joseph.

UNANIMA exists to influence the United Nations on behalf of women and children, especially those living in poverty. It also seeks to serve immigrants, refugees, and to protect the environment, especially the cause for clean water. UNANIMA has grown to 22 communities, each of which has a representative on the board of directors. Sister Sharon is the current representative –chosen before she was elected to community office. The current emphasis is on “the intersections of how family homelessness fuels human trafficking.”

Three members of the UNANIMA International Board gather in February 2023 for a meeting in New York City. From left are Sister Lourdes Varguez Garcia (Religious of Jesus and Mary), who came from Quebec City, Quebec; Ursuline Sister Sharon Sullivan, and Sister Janice Belanger (Sisters of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin), who came from Worcester, Mass. All three represent their communities on the UNANIMA board.

From left, Ursuline Sister Catherine Barber, Sister Jacinta Powers, Ursuline Associate Phyllis Troutman and Ursuline Sister Mary Lois Speaks, along with state Sen. David Boswell, right, watch Kentucky Gov. Ernie Fletcher sign into law the bill outlawing human trafficking in March 2007.

“To advocate effectively, you have to be able to tell the story,” Sister Sharon said. “You have to do research and have grassroots initiatives. UNANIMA can speak at a higher level at the United Nations now, because its members are seen as experts because of their research.”

One of the main focuses of UNANIMA in its first decade was stopping human trafficking. While human trafficking is a federal crime, many states did not have their own law against it, which made local law enforcement slower to react. The Ursuline Sisters worked with a local legislator to introduce a bill in the Kentucky legislature to make human trafficking against state law. This legislation took effect on March 27, 2007.

The Ursuline Sisters have never served alone in the 149 years since they arrived at Maple Mount. Wherever Sisters served, they often relied on family members of the children they taught to help them with transportation, food from their farms and fellowship. Many of the Sisters’ financial supporters through the years are former students who want to share in the mission of the Ursulines.

In the 1970s, collaboration led to two huge ongoing events involving the Sisters – the Mount Saint Joseph Picnic and Music at Maple Mount. The picnic began in 1971 as a marketplace for older Sisters to sell their skilled craft items, and to raise money for the retired Sisters. It became a cultural phenomenon on the second Sunday of September, with thousands of people descending onto the grounds at Maple Mount. Members of parishes all over the diocese joined together to cook and serve barbecue, host dinner stands, work booths and sell raffle tickets. The late Bishop

John McRaith once said that other than the Chrism Mass – held during Holy Week each year – the Mount picnic was the only event that brought the entire diocese together. The final picnic was in 2016.

Music at Maple Mount began in 1975, led by James White, the chairman of the Music Department at Brescia College. He brought guest conductors and musicians from around the country to teach high school students, who also eventually came from across the United States. The Ursuline Sisters worked side by side with the musicians, and the camp finale each year was a performance by the Owensboro Symphony or another orchestra. The final Music at Maple Mount was in 2005. The Sisters have long worked side by side with the Diocese of Owensboro. In August 1989, Bishop McRaith announced that the Mount Saint Joseph Retreat Center would become the Spiritual Life Office for the diocese. Sister Kathleen Kaelin had served in the diocese’s Spiritual Life Office since 1983, with this move coinciding with her becoming the program director for the Center. This role with the diocese lasted until the Center closed in 2020.

The Sisters have a goal of looking for new ways to collaborate with the diocese, especially Catholic Charities. In 2021, the Ursulines worked with Catholic Charities to temporarily house Afghan refugees who were resettling in the United States. Some collaborations have begun with individuals, and expanded to an institutional level. The creation of the Contemporary Woman Program at Owensboro’s Brescia College in 1962 was the result of a collaborative effort between a Chicago psychiatrist, Dr. Phillip Law, and Ursuline Sister Francesca Hazel.

Dr. Law taught psychiatry at the University of Notre Dame and Loyola Medical School in Chicago. He shared with Sister Francesca his concern that so many of his female patients did not seem to value themselves. Sister Francesca was intrigued with the possibility of developing a program for women that she believed was in harmony with what Saint Angela wanted to do for women and girls, to strengthen the family and society. The Contemporary Woman Program was one of the first initiatives in the country to recognize and address the special needs of women.

In 1992, with the farming community outside of Owensboro relying more heavily on Hispanic workers, Bishop McRaith felt moved to reach out to these migrants. Sister Fran Wilhelm became the “church person” to these people living in a strange land. Sister Fran advised the bishop on the need for a center where Hispanics could get help. She collaborated with the pastor at

St. Peter of Alcantara Church, who provided a building, and Brescia College, which donated beds, to open Centro Latino in May 1993. By 2000, Centro Latino had an office next to the Cathedral and Sister Fran – with other Sisters and volunteers – served Hispanics with transportation, translation and help with receiving government benefits until 2018.

Today, Water With Blessings is a thriving organization that began with individual collaboration. Sister Larraine Lauter began traveling to Honduras twice a year in 2000 with a diocesan priest, and within a few years, she began serving with a medical mission team, where she met Jim Burris, an architect, and Arnie LeMay, a hospital engineer. Year after year, the team realized they were treating the same illnesses – dysentery in the children caused by unclean water, which could sometimes kill the very young.

The team decided to begin treating the water, rather than the illness. By using a simple filtration system, Water With Blessings began in 2011, with Sister Larraine taking over as director the next year. She organizes the training of “Water Women” in a growing number of impoverished nations, who promise to share the water they filter with other families.

Today, the organization has more than 100,000 Water Women serving in more than 45 countries. In recent years, Sister Larraine has turned her attention to the United States for the first time, serving the Navajo Nation in the Southwest, and also victims of flooding in eastern Kentucky.

The Sisters’ relationship with Brescia University could come full circle with new collaborations. Brescia College came to be in 1950, with the move of Mount Saint Joseph Junior College from the Mount to Owensboro. Sisters fully staffed and supported it in its early days. Over the decades, the Sisters turned over the leadership of the college to a board of trustees. Today, five Sisters still minister at the college and Ursulines serve on the board.

Sister Sharon – who concluded her teaching career at Brescia in 2022 when she became congregational leader – said while nothing is certain, potential opportunities for the Sisters to collaborate with the university might include joining with students for service projects, or perhaps the psychology program could explore the link between effective counseling and the practices used in spiritual direction.

“Brescia has a solid social work program, which is always looking for practicum placements and experiences for their majors,” Sister Sharon said. “There is a possibility of teaming with services through some of our parishes or services at Mount Saint Joseph, or our Sisters could be possible ‘lived experiences resources.’ Part of the social work explores gerontology – a lot could be done with our population.”

For now, the Ursuline Sisters are seeking how God can best use them in answer to the age-old question, “What is the need?” n