Worth Something

By: Sr. Tracy Kemme, SC

I pulled into Vidal’s driveway on Monday morning, stopping the car just before I reached a big split in the uneven concrete.  I was a few minutes early, so I decided not to go to the door right away.  Vidal has five children, the youngest of whom is just twelve days old!  I figured he and his wife would need all the time they could get to ready their little ones for the day.  However, the side screen door flipped open right away.  Vidal stepped out, dressed in a crisp, button-down shirt and nice pants, a contrast to the run-down house from which he emerged.  He smiled and waved, called, “Hasta luego!” to his wife, and walked toward the car. 

“Buenos días, Hermana,” he said as he climbed into the passenger seat. 

And we were off.  This morning, Vidal was going to share his story. 

I’d been asked to do a presentation about immigration for the intercommunity novitiate class in Cincinnati.  While I could offer insights from my years of working with migrants, I knew that nothing could replace the testimony of someone who has lived migration.  Vidal, a parishioner of the church where I minister, agreed to accompany me. 

Vidal started by telling us about his life in Guatemala.  He was born into economic poverty in a small town in the country.  Most people were subsistence farmers.  Vidal never knew his father, and his mother took little interest in him.  His grandparents raised him. He desperately wanted to go to school, but his family couldn’t afford the supplies.  He only went to first grade, and then, he began to work. 

He worked throughout his whole young life, making the equivalent of $1.50 per day.  As a teenager, he met his now wife.  The pair began planning a future together, but he knew he’d never be able to support a family with what he could make in his home country.  At eighteen, he decided to leave and travel north. 

It was a long, dangerous journey that involved walking through the desert for six days, being deported once, and being swindled and abandoned in an unknown place by a “coyote” who was supposed to help him.  He finally made it to Cincinnati, where some people from his hometown had settled. 

Here in the U.S., life has been better, but not easy.  Vidal described the difficulty of trying to make a life in a place where they don’t know the language, where they can’t get a real job, where they can’t get a driver’s license, and where many people wish he wasn’t here.  He, like many immigrants, has worked long hours for little pay, mostly in landscaping and janitorial services.  It is tough, but he hopes to stay here. The United States is all that his children know. 

Perhaps the most shocking part of the story is the resistance he and his fellow Catholic Guatemalans faced in trying to find a parish. One parish told them that they weren’t welcome because the parish “already had too many activities going on.”  A second parish offered a similar response, but the school principal, a Sister of Charity, welcomed them and at least offered them the school auditorium for worship. 

For about seven years, they hired their own Spanish-speaking priests and held Mass in the school, never setting foot in the church building.  Finally, three years ago, a new pastor came and began the process of welcoming them fully into the parish. 

When we climbed back into the car after the class, I thanked Vidal for his courage in sharing his profound witness. 

He said, “Thank you, too, Hermana, for giving me this opportunity.  I never imagined that someone like me, an immigrant with no education, would ever be invited to talk in front of anybody!”  He shook his head and then smiled, “Doing that made me realize that I’m worth something.” 

My heart broke and rejoiced in the same instance.  How sad that our world makes people feel like they aren’t worth anything; what a gift it was to be part of a moment that reversed that for one person. 

I thought of Pope Francis’ words to Congress just a few weeks ago, “We must not be taken aback by [the] numbers [of immigrants] but rather view them as persons, seeing their faces and listening to their stories, trying to respond as best we can to their situation.” 

I’m so grateful for the faces I’ve seen and the stories I’ve heard.  Walking with people like Vidal is a true privilege – and a call to never tire of working for justice.   

All the Colors in the Box

By: Sr. Mallorie Gerwitz, SCL

In my ponderings, observations and experiences thus far in life and in community and in my ability to explain to each of you where I am along this journey; I began to think of the twisting and winding road that brought me here.  I resourced a book, by Robert Fulghum, whom I am sure some have read, entitled, “Everything I need to know I learned in Kindergarten.” 

One quote in particular speaks to me on this journey as to our uniqueness and to our spirit of charism as Sisters of Charity of Leavenworth, “We could learn a lot from crayons; some are sharp, some are pretty, some are dull, while others bright, some have weird names, but they all have learned to live together in the same box.” Each of us brings a color of uniqueness, individuality, skills and gifts to the group, and without all the colors we wouldn’t be…well colorful, a complete box of crayons.  I will expand on Fulghum’s quote to explain where I am on the journey and the crayon that I bring to the box.  

When you open a box of crayons for the first time, maybe in the fall before students come back to class, on retreat, in your artwork or just at home relaxing in front of the tv… you see the colors all lined up with their similar partners all in a row, those with the most similar attributes, similar life experiences etc.  Possibly similar to your best friend, someone you would choose to pal around with.  Then after a few uses, kids rushing to pick up after art class, moms at home needing to clear the table… the colors get all jumbled up, broken… and the red starts to bump into the black; orange, with blue and green; pink with white and yellow… the crayons lose some of their sharpness, the tips become rounded, smoothed out.  What is happening inside that box of crayons is that the crayons are beginning to experience the variety of the box around them.  The unique characteristics of that crayon or this crayon, the way they can add color just in the right place, at the right time, to the canvas and without all the colors, the artwork would not be complete.  As Edvard Munch once stated about life, “The colors live a remarkable life of their own after they have been applied to the canvas.”

I came into the world and through my baptism have brought my color and light.  I have added it here and there; I’ve bumped into other colors.  I thought about living with this color or that color, thought about choosing one color, but in my reflection and hope for my life, I wanted to experience all the colors. 

 Since I have entered community I have enjoyed experiencing the colors of each of my sisters, through shared meals, conversations and classes and experiencing each sisters individual efforts and unified efforts to create a just world led by the spirit.  I have been humbled and moved.  I have also found myself growing into a deeper understanding of my true color.   

I have seen myself grow in intentionality, commitments and the recognition that prayer and reflection assist me in being my best self.  I have had many opportunities to learn more about myself through prayer, classes, community, artwork, nature, and various ministries.  I have felt my heartstrings tugged in many directions, with the needs of so many who lack health care, those with disabilities, those on our streets, those with mental illness, those seeking housing or food, our immigrant brothers and sisters and the abused and neglected, just to name a few.  

Dorthy Day, I think, states this struggle with the human condition and the rights of all humans in the way that I would best describe my struggle: “What we would like to do is change the world--make it a little simpler for people to feed, clothe, and shelter themselves as God intended them to do. And, by fighting for better conditions, by crying out unceasingly for the rights of the workers, of the poor, the destitute--the rights of the worthy and the unworthy poor – we can to a certain extent change the world”.

I hold all the needs of our brothers and sisters in my heart, and at this time, although unsure of which holds my heart the most, and where I will be called to serve, I know that I have witnessed and continue to experience in myself a deep commitment to wanting to be part of the vision and mission of the Sisters of Charity of Leavenworth.  I desire and hope to live up to the name, Sister.

 As I grow into community, in this special year of novitiate I hope to take time to deepen my prayer life, try to live one day at a time with openness and love to all that I may encounter, and to focus my intentions on where God is most calling me to live out this life as a Sister of Charity of Leavenworth. 

The SCL foundress, Mother Xavier Ross was the first one to add her color to the Canvas.   How blessed are we for her dream… her commitment and for all those who have followed, allowing their color to be added.  I thank each of my sisters for allowing the canvas to once again be changed and altered by my presence, as I add whatever craziness, love, life, ministry, dreams and hopes that God has in store for my life amongst each of you.  Let this color, live a remarkable life, on this SCL canvas. 

 

 

 

 

 

(Sisters of Charity of Leavenworth _ “Look forward to the Good that’s yet to Be”– S. Jennifer Gordon, Statue – Foundress – Mother Xavier Ross, S. Amy Willcott, S. Melissa Camardo and Canonical Novice S. Mallorie Gerwitz)