Sister Cecilia Joseph Olinger - Ursuline Sisters of Mount Saint Joseph

Sister Cecelia Joseph Olinger hits the road for JesusJULY 23, 2013 –The distance between the tinyOzarks town of Van Buren insouthern Missouri and St. Louis isroughly 150 miles. That’s about asmany miles as Ursuline Sister CeceliaJoseph Olinger drives on theweekend – just to go to Mass.That’s because Sister Cecelia Josephis the pastoral associate for threechurches in Van Buren, Piedmontand Williamsville, a tourist area thatfeatures the Current River and theMark Twain National Forest. Itrequires 144 miles of driving toattend the four weekend Masses at the three churches.One of Sister C.J.’s favorite pastimes is to visit the CurrentRiver near her home in Van Buren, Mo.“I go to Piedmont for 11 a.m. Sunday Mass because they have religious educationbeforehand. I’m usually a Eucharistic minister or lector on Saturday night in Piedmont,”she said. “I’m usually always at Van Buren for the 8 a.m. Mass.” Once a month sheattends the Saturday evening Mass in Williamsville when the parish has its potluck.She just finished her second year in this ministry and is glad to be back in the diocesewhere she grew up, just 66 miles from her hometown of Glennonville. She coordinatesreligious education for the children and works with RCIA and the Arise program withadults.Being on the road for the Lord is nothing new for Sister Cecelia Joseph, who almosteveryone calls “C.J.” She spent 15 years ministering in New Mexico, first as a teacherand then serving three Native American churches in a pueblo. She’s ministered inClinton and Benton, Ky., which are areas with few Catholics where she went out to visitthe sick or worked with parishes in neighboring counties.“She never runs out of people to see, places to go or ideas to share,” said Sister ElaineBurke, her friend since the two ministered in New Mexico together 25 years ago. “If youvisit her, she makes sure you see things you’ve not seen before.”Sister C.J. has a gift of joy, Sister Elaine said. “She’s a very cheerful, fun-loving person.She loves to laugh, sing and entertain. But she sees prayer as a top priority.”

Cotton patch girlSister C.J. was born Evelyn Marie Olinger (pronounced “Oh-linger”) among the cottonfields of Glennonville, the 10 th of 11 children born into the farming family of JosephMatthias and Cecilia Magdalene Olinger. She was called Mary Evelyn during herchildhood, and didn’t know her actual name until she entered the convent, she said.Sister C.J. attended Glennonville Public Elementary School, in which the teachers wereUrsuline Sisters. When Missouri outlawed sisters in religious garb from teaching inpublic schools, the people of Glennonville chose to turn the school into a Catholic schoolnamed St. Teresa, rather than risk losing the sisters as teachers, Sister C.J. said. Sheattended the school as St. Teresa only her last year.The two Ursuline Sisters who had the most impact on her both died in the past year –Sister Frances Miriam Spalding taught her in the first and second grade and SisterMiriam Medley taught her in the seventh and eighth.“Sister Frances Miriam taught me phonics and that helped me with reading andspelling,” Sister C.J. said. “Sister Miriam was instrumental in getting me to (Mount SaintJoseph) Academy. She talked to my mother a lot, and sometimes I wonder if she told mymother that she thought I had a vocation.”St. Teresa could not afford to have aCatholic high school as well, so some ofthose families who wanted to continue aCatholic education sent their daughters toMount Saint Joseph Academy, 250 milesaway in Maple Mount, Ky. Sister C.J. is oneof six Glennonville natives who are UrsulineSisters, the others being Sisters AmeliaStenger, Rebecca White, Diane MariePayne, Mary Celine Weidenbenner andMichael Marie Friedman.Sister Clara and Sister C.J. spend time in thebotanical garden of the Bellagio Hotel in LasVegas in 2008. The two sisters, who were novicestogether, have traveled together across thecountry.Five girls from Glennonville and nearbyWilhelmina came to the Mount in 1954, butonly Sister C.J. and Viola Seely Fortnergraduated. (Fortner died in October 2011).“If I hadn’t gone to the Academy, I don’tknow if I would have entered thecommunity,” Sister C.J. said.“I was excited to come to the Academy,

plus there were others from Glennonville going,” she said. “I didn’t get homesick untilafter a few days.” She received a partial scholarship to attend the Academy and workedoff the rest of her tuition by cleaning the student shop and the post office.Her call to become an Ursuline Sister was gradual. “March was vocation month, theygave us a little talk,” she said. “Each year the calling got more persistent. I felt sure aftermy junior year, I had the feeling I was being called to do this.” Three other members ofher 1958 graduating class entered with her, but she is the only one who stayed. She andSister Clara Reid are the only remaining members of her 1959 novice class.“She was the same then as she is now, always joyful,” Sister Clara said.A teacher is bornSister C.J. began her first of 36 years in the classroom in 1961 at Precious Blood Schoolin Owensboro, Ky., where she taught second grade. After two years she moved to HolyCross, Ky., to teach first grade for two years and then to Immaculate Conception inHawesville, Ky., for a year in 1965, making the jump to seventh and eighth grade. Sheplayed music with her classes.“My first three assignments were because I am an ‘organist,’” she said, accentuating theair quotes. “I’m not really skilled at the organ, I can just do the basic stuff. I had pianolessons my freshman and sophomore years of high school, and organ lessons as anovice,” she said. “We joked that if you knew where middle C was you became theorganist.”It was while she was teaching atImmaculate Conception that one ofher students started calling her“Sister C.J,” she said. “I liked it,” shesaid. “There are too many syllablesin ‘Sister Cecelia Joseph.’”When she arrived at St. RomualdSchool in Hardinsburg, Ky., in 1966,she fell in love with teaching musicto children. “They had a goodbackground. Sister Marie Carol(Cecil) gave them a good start infirst and second grade.” She taughtthe fifth and sixth grades, then laterseventh and eighth during herseven years at the school.Sister C.J. is pictured in the top row to the left in herfirst year at St. Romuald School in Hardinsburg, Ky.The other sisters pictured with her are, from left in herrow, Sisters Dolores Gatton, Florentia Mahoney,Emma Cecilia Busam and Mary Oderic Settles; firstrow from left, Sisters Lucille Blincoe, Jean TeresaTaylor, Paul Joseph Mattingly, Charles EmalineClements and Mary Carl Sherron. Only Sister C.J. andSister Emma Cecilia are still living.

From 1973-78, she taught seventh and eighth grade math and religion at St. MargaretMary School in Louisville, and also played music with the fourth-graders. “Musicministry with the little kids is what I enjoyed the most,” she said.Being a teacher was never what she would have chosen, but she believes she was agood one. “I was tough,” she said. “I was either loved or hated.”One of her favorite missions began in 1978, teaching math and language arts to fifththrough eighth grades at Sacred Heart School in Poplar Bluff, Mo. It was her chance toreturn to her home diocese of Springfield-Cape Girardeau.“I was enjoying teaching and realizing I could expand things beyond the books in theclassroom,” she said. During Lent she had her students act out the Passion before therest of the school.During the summers while she was in Poplar Bluff, she helped with Camp Re-NEW-all, aCatholic camp for children in the fifth through ninth grades. “We’d have 100 campers. Iwas religious formation director some years, a cook or a counselor,” she said.Since she returned to the diocese to minister in 2011, she decided to help cook at thecamp last summer and was inspired by the adults who took their work vacations to helpat the camp.“I went last year because I wanted there to be a real live flesh and blood sister there,”she said. “I was the only one.”She left Poplar Bluff in 1984 and spent two years teaching in Madisonville, Ky., when shedecided to take on a new adventure. Her mother died in 1985, and she felt free toventure farther away from home. She had visited her friend Sister Clara once in NewMexico, but hadn’t considered a move there.“I thought I was being missionary enough moving from Missouri to Kentucky,” she saidwith her customary infectious laugh.Sister Clara was principal in Grants, N.M., and had an opening in 1986. “I told SisterMary Irene (Cecil, then major superior) about it, she said there was more need in SanFidel, and I thought it was probably better not to work for my friend,” Sister C.J. said.Sister Clara, who continues to minister in New Mexico, was glad to have her friendnearby. “Once she’s your friend, she will always support you,” Sister Clara said. “I canshare anything with her. She’s very serious about her prayer life and very generous tohelp people.”

Sister C.J. pictured in her classroom at the SaintAnthony Zuni Indian Mission, Zuni, N.M., in 1995.Sister C.J. made sure not to teachdifferently in San Fidel than she hadelsewhere, but there was a differentwork ethic in the San Fidel children.“They came 20 miles to school, it washard to keep a kid after school for notdoing his homework,” she said.While at San Fidel, she lived with SisterMarie Brenda Vowels, who was workingin Acoma, and the two enjoyed playingcribbage together. “She’s outgoing andfriendly to everybody,” Sister MarieBrenda said. “She’s a lot of fun to play cards with. She’s a very intelligent person andgenerous.”Sister Elaine was serving 16 miles away in Grants in 1988. “When we got together, we’dwork puzzles, go walking or gather cans along the highway,” Sister Elaine said. “We’dclimb Mt. Taylor, all sorts of creative things. There’s never a dull moment when you’rewith Sister C.J. She can come up with so many different things to do.”In 1991, Sister C.J. began serving as teacher, librarian and in charge of liturgical music atSaint Anthony Zuni Indian Mission, Zuni, N.M. During that time she lived with membersof other religious communities, which was an enriching experience, but also made hermore grateful for her Ursuline community, she said.When she left Zuni in 1995, she spent 11 months on sabbatical at the New Life Center inMiddleburg, Va. “I learned skills and strategies to handle the challenges with myself andother people, especially in conflict situations,” she said.A new ministryIn 1996, she returned to teaching in St. Louis, but she planned to look for anotherministry at the end of the school year in 1998. The sister who was serving as pastoralassociate at St. Jude Parish in tiny Clinton, Ky., became ill, and Sister C.J. was asked totake over in January 1998.“I thought I’d be there five months,” Sister C.J. said. “Clinton is not a Catholic area. Aspastoral associate I did whatever needed to be done.”There were Catholic churches in two neighboring counties. Father Mike Clark served inFulton, Sister Mary Agnes VonderHaar in Hickman. “We did RCIA as a team, lots of

formation as a team,” Sister C.J. said. “It was a beautiful fit for me, it gave me thecourage to do other things. I enjoy parish ministry on a collaborative level.”Sister C.J. prepares a take-out order of fish, river chips andhush puppies on May 3 during the St. Catherine Parish fishfry in Piedmont, Mo. In the center is Diane Lewis and at left,Gina Young. St. Catherine is one of three churches in whichSister C.J. ministers.After five years in Clinton, theFranciscan priest she’d worked withpreviously in New Mexico, FatherDale Jamison, urged her to return tominister as pastoral associate in theFranciscan ministry at Tewa (“Taywuh”)Missions in Espanola.“I came to do music and RCIA, butthat wasn’t a full-time job,” shesaid. “I visited the homebound andtaught kindergarten religion.”Native Americans who live in townsare said to live in “pueblos,” asopposed to “plains,” where they aremore scattered. Three puebloscomprised one parish, although they each had their own church. She played music atMass for each of the churches.Father Jamison left in 2006, and there were no Franciscans to take his place, so SisterC.J. became parish life coordinator that October and ran the parish her final three yearsthere. By 2008, Sister C.J. felt a desire to leave New Mexico.“I didn’t think I was having the impact I wanted in developing the people as practicingCatholics,” she said. In late 2008 one of her sisters died and in April 2009, another sisterdied. She has three brothers and two sisters living. Being so far from her family wasdifficult for her, so she prepared to leave New Mexico in the summer of 2009.She called Sister Mary Sheila Higdon, who was ministering in Van Buren, and asked her ifthere were any openings in the area. Sister Mary Sheila told her she would likely beretiring in the coming year or so, and she could replace her.Sister C.J. instead came to Benton, Ky., which has no Catholic church, to serve as aCatholic presence. She visited the sick at nursing homes and helped with a clothingministry. “It was delightful, but I thought I had more I could still give,” she said. “I wasn’tcontributing financially to the (Ursuline) community.”When Sister Mary Sheila returned to the Motherhouse in 2011, Sister C.J. replaced herin Van Buren. Now in her 54 th year as a sister, she is looking forward to ministering inthe area for several more years.

She bought some colored bells withgrant money in 2005 and made sureto bring those to Missouri with her.“I used them with children at thethree pueblos in New Mexico, withchildren in Calvert City and Mayfield,Ky., and now in Piedmont,” she said.“I’ve used them with adults atNative American Christmas dinners,Sister C.J., second from left, selects and organizes the even getting Archbishop (of Santa FeSunday music for the choir at St. George Church in Van Michael) Sheehan and puebloBuren, Mo. Pictured here are the choir members, from left,Sister Pat Murphy CSJ, Sister C.J., Louise McKeel, Ken governors to play bells. Adults atHaberl and Lynna Biscoito.senior citizen centers have playedthem as well as adults at Camp Re-NEW-All and sisters at the Mount. I've gotten a lot of mileage out of the $100 bells.”Sister Elaine said Sister C.J. adjusts to new missions and fits in immediately. “She findsnew ways to work with people. Any new idea, she wants to discuss it right away,” SisterElaine said. “She’s very curious intellectually. She always wants to be learning.”In her free time, Sister C.J. enjoys playing computer games, walking to the Current Riverto watch it flow or walking across the river to observe it from on high. She also enjoysreading or watching a movie on the Hallmark Channel. She’s been fortunate to travel.“I’ve been to the Holy Land twice. That was a dream come true,” she said. “I took anAlaskan cruise, I’ve been to Niagara Falls, the Grand Canyon and on a Saint Angelapilgrimage.”She’s glad she made the decision to become an Ursuline Sister.“It may be the best decision I’ve ever made. I’m getting richer and richer,” she said. “Wecome to the community for one reason, but we stay for a different reason. You can’t dothe ministry without realizing you’re serving God.”By Dan Heckel