Journey - Congregation of the Sisters, Servants of the Immaculate ...

page 6
Journey
Fall 2012
Proceed as Way Opens
by Sister Ancilla Maloney, IHM
Many of you who are
reading this article
remember the day at
our Assembly 2010 when Sister
Norma Poma Arpi went to the
microphone and invited us to
come to Peru for a visit—to get
to know her and experience the
people, culture, and ministries
of the sisters there. Without any
hesitation I literally experienced
myself walking across the room
and saying to Norma, “Yes, I´ll
go”— for a visit in the summer of
2011. (My mother had just died
the previous winter so I was free
to go.)
I went to Peru for a visit the
next year and spent a week with
Sister Eileen Egan in Sicuani and
then two more weeks in Lima with
Sister Mary Elaine Anderson and
Norma as well as with Rosalvina
Aliaga Apaza, a young lay woman
who was living with the sisters.
On my return flight home I had no
thoughts of returning. I was just
making a visit. For years, probably
since the first sisters went to Peru,
I had kept in touch with them.
Sister Michael Marie, who was in
the first group sent to Lima, and I
had lived together at Cresco, and
I was mindful of how hard it must
have been to be so far away from
community, family, and friends
in the States. On Founders´ Day
or Christmas I often sent cards,
small gifts, or made phone calls. I
was, however, deeply involved in
teaching in various high schools,
and as the years rolled by, I also
needed to be present to my mother
as she moved into her 80s and 90s.
Sister Fran Fasolka, in her
invitation to write this article,
posed the question, “Where did
the courage come from?” How
do I have the courage to pick up
and move to Bolivia for language
school for a total immersion
experience, which includes
living with a Bolivian family
and only speaking Spanish, and
then heading for mission in Peru?
Neither from Norma´s invitation,
nor Eileen´s urging, nor even
awareness of the congregation´s
need for sisters to go to Peru.
The invitation came very
clearly from God in the week
after I returned from Peru. Every
day in my prayer, in my spiritual
reading, in my contemplation of
life as I was living it, I listened as
the song says “with the ear of my
heart.” And I knew clearly that to
offer to go to Peru was what God
was inviting me to do. At the end
of that week I answered the phone,
and it was Sister Terry looking for
Sister Mary. I took the opportunity
to tell her that I would be open to
going to Peru if the congregation
would want to send me. I had
turned seventy-two the previous
May, so maybe the congregation
would not think this was a good
idea. The following February
Sister Terry confirmed that “Yes,
the leadership team would be
happy for [me] to go!”
But this is not really the answer
to the question that Sister Fran
posed. I think it all began in the
1970s with the Latin American
Bishops´
Conferences
at Medellin and
Puebla and their
enunciation of
the message of
Jesus and his
“preferential
option for the
poor.” I was
stationed in
Oyster Bay, NY,
and I had invited
a priest who had
volunteered with
the Christian
Appalachian
Project in eastern
Kentucky to speak
to our students.
This grew out
of a class on
mysticism given
by Benedict
Groeschel, OFM
that a group of
sisters and I were
attending. I was
deeply touched
by his saying
that he never accepted people
for spiritual direction unless they
were volunteering each week
to help someone who was poor.
“Then you will see the face of the
God whom you seek,” he said.
So I felt that the students might
be encouraged to volunteer to
go to eastern Kentucky to work
with the people of Appalachia. I
myself had finished my studies
at Notre Dame, and the previous
summer I had been asked by
Sister Patricia Matthews to teach
a second summer at Marywood
College. I talked with her and
she affirmed my desire to work
with the people of Appalachia
while assuring me that others
could teach the classes. Thus
began more than twenty years of
working directly with the poor and
involving hundreds of students in
the Center for American Progress
(CAP) in this venture. I was more
deeply convinced than ever that
“constitutive to being a Christian
was action for justice.”
Life at CAP was a challenge—
having insufficient nourishing
food, sleeping in a roasting hot
dormitory with twenty other
young lay women, having a huge
rock overlooking the lake for my
chapel. Years later I heard God´s
invitation to begin volunteering
in North Carolina working with
our sisters, my students, and
colleagues from Aquinas High
School in the migrant camps and
parishes with migrant children
who had little chance for religious
instruction. We lived in trailers,
rectories, and rented homes and
worked in 100 degree heat with
sheets for our “classrooms.”
During these years I had
studied Spanish with Sisters
Dorothy McCaffrey and Amanda
Del Valle, in the Dominican
Republic and for three years in
class with the students in Holy
Cross High School.
So when Sister Fran asked
“Where did you find the courage
to make this huge step?” the
answer I think lies in years of
listening and responding to God
in my personal and communal
prayer, daily spiritual reading
where I have always heard God
speaking to me, and in the voice of
God in people and in the everyday.
The groundwork had been laid for
years. Patricia Loring, quoted in
Catherine Whitmire´s collection
of Quaker writings Plain Living,
reflects, “It takes time to sift
ourselves and the matter at
hand for ego, self will, sincere
mistakes . . . for the will of God,
the movement of the Spirit, for a
Way to open, for discernment to
take place.” Also, over the years
I have always availed myself of
good spiritual direction to help me
listen to God. Gordon Matthews in
Whitmire´s book reminded me,“if
we dwell in the presence of God,
we shall be led by the Spirit.” The
key is to pay attention.
Four or five years ago, I
realized it was time to make
a move, to transition out of
teaching, but the question was
continued on page 16