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Listening
Ears
April 2009
Shortly after our provincial chapter 2006,
which we opened with a day of reflection on the Sacredness of water and the
essential part it plays in the life of all creation, Sister Kate Conti,
provincial, had the opportunity to experience the destructive power of water
through the stories of the major superiors whose communities had lived
through and were still in the throes of the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina
in New Orleans. The panel so moved her that she requested all of us to
listen to the
Over the past 11 months, we have lived out
the province’s “Listening Ears” project in a variety of ways. After much
interviewing and listening to the expressed needs of the area, the project
was developed to provide the people of New Orleans with a compassionate
listening presence on a short term basis – a need identified by the various
agencies and people already on the ground in the city. In doing this,
caregivers and clients alike could share their stories with others who did
not have a story of their own to share, and who would therefore be freer to
listen and truly hear what was being said.
This was done in St. Mary of the Angels
parish, the only Franciscan parish in the city, where Sister Jean used her
listening and networking skills, accompanied by student Sister Divina Mu, as
they visited the newly returning parishioners to help surface needs for the
parish leadership to know about.
It was carried on when Sisters Joan Reisch,
Janice Jolin, Cecilia Walsh, together with co-worker Lillian DeCristafaro
and friend Caryl Hubert spent several days working through the Archdiocese
in Chateau de Notre Dame, one of their re-opened nursing homes; the five
became “the wheelchair brigade,” having been given the task of checking the
patients’ wheelchairs, which enabled much conversation to take place with
staff and patients alike. As Sr. Joan expresses it, “it was an honor
to be there and I will always remember the graciousness of the nursing home
residents, staff and the Holy Cross Sisters with whom we stayed.”
Sisters Marcia and Eleanor
also worked through the Archdiocese, and were given the project of
visiting all the units in a newly renovated and reopened low income
independent living complex, where each morning, the office personnel
announced that the “listening Sisters” had arrived
to go through the building,
visiting. Visiting these people who were only now returning to their
hometown after more than three years , was an experience of
the resilience of the human being,
the tug of “home” for people,
the reaching out to each other to make return less traumatic.
To actually meet some of the very people whose pictures covered the
newspapers around the country was humbling in the gift of trust as they
opened their hearts. As Sister Marcia says, “I received the gifts of faith,
hope, love and the challenging gifts to be more resilient, more engaged with
life, more trusting in the Abundance of God’s presence and love.’
Sisters Miriam and Lucivane, student Sister
from Brazil, worked with an agency cleaning up and reorganizing space for
their future projects. For the two, it was the opportunity to see for
themselves both the on-going devastation and the small glimpses of hope that
grow each day, Lucivane having followed the original horror from her
province in Brazil, Miriam from Maine, and whose family lived in the New
Orleans area. The faith and courage of the people, especially the Holy
Family Sisters, with whom they stayed, as they had lost so much, was part of
what touched Miriam in this experience.
Sr. Consuela hosted student Sr. Johanna and
introduced Johanna, soon to return to her province in Namibia, Africa, to
the work that she does in the parish, visiting the homebound and interacting
with those in deep need in the area.
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