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I’ve gotten to know quite a few Sisters of Life while working at Catholic New York. They include a good many who have served in the archdiocese’s Family Life/Respect Life Office, such as Sister Lucy Marie, S.V., and Sister Shirley Ann, S.V., who are currently assigned there. Others I’ve met at the March for Life in Washington, D.C., or at pro-life Masses and gatherings at St. Patrick’s Cathedral or elsewhere in New York. Several have come to our office over the years to scan the paper’s archives while researching their congregation’s founding by Cardinal John O’Connor in 1991.
Of course, Cardinal O’Connor first posted the “Help Wanted” sign promoting the new congregation in his column in this newspaper.
We’ve covered the sisters’ pro-life ministry for every bit of the last 25 years. So, I just couldn’t stay away from the Mass that Cardinal Dolan celebrated at St. Patrick’s Cathedral June 1 marking the congregation’s silver anniversary. Reporter Julie DosSantos was assigned to that story, but it just wouldn’t have felt right not to be among the many in the cathedral that morning.
I am glad I made it just as Mass was beginning, for if I know one thing about the Sisters of Life, it’s that prayer is at the heart of everything they do.
Cardinal Dolan surely touched all the bases in a beautifully crafted homily that Mother Agnes Mary Donovan, S.V., the longtime superior general of the Sisters of Life, called “magnificent” in remarks near the end of the Mass.
The cardinal, taking the pulpit above a portrait of Cardinal O’Connor, spoke of the “historic dare” that his predecessor made in founding the new congregation. The tenor of the times then, the cardinal recalled, was filled with doubts about the long-range prospects for consecrated religious life. Were religious congregations to be relegated to a diminished status, or, worse yet, just historical memory in years to come?
On June 1, 1991, Cardinal O’Connor received Mother Agnes Mary and seven other postulants as he established the Sisters of Life at a Mass in Marycrest Convent, the motherhouse of the Parish Visitors of Mary Immaculate.
Looking back at their quarter-century of ministry on behalf of life in all its stages, Cardinal Dolan expressed gratitude to the Sisters of Life for their witness and also “for the renewal you have given consecrated religious life in the Church.”
Now numbering nearly 100 sisters, the congregation has since established foundations in Bridgeport, Conn.; Toronto, Ontario; Washington, D.C.; and most recently in Denver, Colo.
Mother Agnes Mary began a round of gratitude by offering a hearty “thank you to the Church of New York,” and its archbishops, as the place where the Sisters of Life began and continue to flourish.
In a nod to another momentous occasion at St. Patrick’s, Cardinal Dolan earlier repeated the question asked by Pope Francis during his visit to the cathedral in September: What would the Church in America be if not for its religious sisters?
The service extended by the Sisters of Life to those whom they encounter is precisely the type of Gospel witness that Pope Francis has spent his papacy promoting.
Theirs is a New York Church story that’s worth repeating. What the Sisters of Life and their many collaborators in mission have been able to accomplish should be a point of pride for the entire archdiocese.
Saying that the “trust placed in the most noble cause of life by the Sisters of Life two and a half decades ago has been validated beyond belief,” Cardinal Dolan invited all present in the cathedral to the congregation’s 50th anniversary celebration in Yankee Stadium on June 1, 2041. The invitation drew a mix of laughter and applause.
Knowing the Sisters of Life, I would not rule it out.
