Walking on holy ground

Embracing the Spirit of our pioneer Sisters and others who have gone before

by Sister Elise Cholewinski

As I walked into the building to begin my first evening of teaching religion to middle school students, I felt a sense of awe. During the previous spring I had moved to our convent in Green Bay, and now I was about to engage in ministry in the first place in which our Sisters had taught, over 150 years ago. Somehow their spirit seemed to envelope this old school, a spirit of dedication and self-sacrifice, a spirit of commitment and perseverance in face of the many challenges those Sisters confronted in bringing the Word of God to people living in the wilderness of Wisconsin. As I stepped into my classroom, I felt like I    was standing on holy ground.

At a time when our culture is focused so much on the future, engaging in strategic planning for how to make life more satisfying and our work more productive, we can lose that connection to the past. In reflecting on the lives of the people who carved a path for us in unknown territory, in pondering the values that motivated their huge undertakings, we come to realize that we stand on the shoulders of giants. It is our bondedness with the people of the past that forms us into who we are today. How precious are those roots from which we have grown.

I was a little nervous as I stood in the gym, waiting for the students to arrive. Then I suddenly realized that behind this school, a rather short distance up the road, is the cemetery in which lie the bodies of our pioneer Sisters and all our deceased Sisters who followed them. All religious women filled with a love for God and His people. I said a prayer at that moment and I now say it before every class I teach.

“All you holy Franciscan Sisters, pray for us.”