Adults learn about faith differently today

By Patricia Kasten
Compass Associate Editor

	S p e c i a l   S e c t i o n: Sisters' Jubilees 2008 Honoring sisters celebrating 25, 50, 60, 70 and 75-year anniversaries
	• Diocese honors 57 women     Annual Sisters Jubilee Mass set for     May 4 at Green Bay cathedral
	Only in the Print Edition ... Articles found only in the 16-page special section of the May 2, 2008 Compass print edition: • Serving where needed most; Two sisters from opposite ends of globe find ministry at social service site in Oshkosh • Jubilarian reflects on Holy Spirit's work in her vocation • Educators keep right on teaching for 70 years; Bay Settlement Franciscans both help at Green Bay's Literacy Council • Still 'trying to figure out' the secret of retirement; Golden jubilarian has tackled education in many forms • Manitowoc sister's Chicago outreach saves lives; Sr. Sara Hale went to Chicago to study, learned to reach out • Nursing sisters have served in many roles; Three women share dreams of helping the sick • Subscribe to print edition

MANITOWOC -- Learning about the Catholic faith does not come as automatically as it did when some of this year's Sister jubilarians were young. Today people need to search more for an understanding of their faith. However, when they do so, it becomes like a new discovery for them, bringing excitement and new life.

That's the insight of three Franciscan Sisters of Christian Charity who, between them, are marking 110 years of vowed religious life. All three - Sisters Donna Marie Kessler, Judanne Stratman and Ritarose Stahl - have spent their careers in religious education, from elementary schools to adult faith formation to vocation formation.

"My biggest joy is when I see the student or an adult really enjoying their faith, probing into some of the things we've taken for granted," said Sr. Judanne, a golden jubilarian. "When they all of a sudden realize that God's a part of their lives and they're able to put it into words. Then they aren't afraid to jump into other mysteries and keep moving along. But it takes time. They need direction in making choices. They really want to integrate the faith into their life experience. That's part of who we are as people."

Sr. Judanne has been a school teacher, religious education director and served in administration and formation in her community. She currently is teaching at Silver Lake College in Manitowoc.

Sr. Donna Marie, who grew up in St. Patrick Parish in Menasha, is marking 60 years in religious life. She has served as a teacher and principal in elementary schools. She, too, has served in the general administration of her community and as its formation coordinator. In 1986, she became the director of the Institute of Religious Studies for Adults (IRSA) at Silver Lake College, where she still teaches part-time.

"I've kept a lot of the papers they handed in at the end of their studies," she said of IRSA students. "Some of the things they put down almost bring tears to your eyes this day."

She is currently her community's archivist, writing its history, and teaches Scripture classes to postulants and Sisters returning from mission work. While IRSA ended in 1997, she has found that adults today have found that faith learning is a life-long process. She credits the Second Vatican Council with that - coming as it did at a time in history when society was changing rapidly.

"That was when we began to see that more and more adults were asking us for classes," she said of the early 1970s.

Sr. Ritarose, who has headed the library at Silver Lake College for 19 years, recalls that time as one of transition.

"The catechisms of the time left out doctrine and dogma," she said. "I think there's a whole group of people who came up on those catechisms and left the doctrine go and those are the people we have to pull back and teach now."

Despite changes in learning the faith, the sisters each agreed that it isn't a question of which generations had more faith, but of how that faith was shared and passed on to new generations.

"I think of my mother and father," Sr. Ritarose said. "What did they have (for faith formation)? Besides the Sunday homily? A lot of faith. Yet they were so faith-filled and they put that into us."

Sr. Donna Marie noted that, for people of earlier generations, "doctrine didn't change that much. Statements of belief remained the same, so there was little development and it was simply making them known."

That, she said, was why simple catechisms were enough and people completed their religious education by the eighth grade. "They didn't think they needed to go on."

The stability of the family and the fact that multiple generations lived in one area helped assure that faith principles were passed on naturally and shaped for new situations as they arose, she added.

The mobile society of today makes that harder, Sr. Donna Marie said. However, it also offers many opportunities, both in ministry opportunities and in religious education for all generations.

Sr. Judanne believes people are realizing that "ours is a faith that is intelligent - that the mind has to wrap itself around understanding what our beliefs are."

And one of the biggest ways that came about was through an enriched understanding of the Scripture. That came from both the reform of the Mass, starting under Pope Pius XII, that saw a five-fold increase in the amount of Scriptures read at Mass, and from encouragement to read the Bible.

None of the three Sisters had a Bible for personal use before entering the convent.

"We did not read the Bible," said Sr. Donna Marie of her childhood. "We all had bibles at home and we recorded things (marriages, deaths and births) in." But no one, she said, actually read them.

She received her first Bible from a priest after she had become a teacher. "That was the first time I'd had a Bible in my hand."

Sr. Ritarose received a Bible from her parents when she entered the convent. "I don't know why they did that, because we didn't read it at home either."

Neither case is unusual. In one of the Scripture classes Sr. Donna Marie leads for members of her community, she once had an elderly Sister, in her 90s, come without a Bible. When Sr. Donna Marie asked if she'd forgotten it that day, the older sister replied. "Oh no, I don't have a Bible. A priest told me one time that we shouldn't read the Bible because we'd misinterpret it."

While that once was the norm, it is not today, the Sisters agree. More adults are receiving not only undergraduate, but master's level education in the faith. However, the three sisters agree that Catholic adults also need to feel they are valued by their priests and parishes as they prepare themselves for ministry in the church.

"They have to see a need for a place for them," said Sr. Judanne. "It's a thing for parishes to identify: Do they want lay leadership and do they want to pay just salaries? There would be more lay leadership if there would be an outward expression of a need and an acceptance and a willingness to provide for them as a church community."

Sr. Ritarose agreed, adding that this is especially true for women. "I know there are more women who would be willing to sit on boards, but they don't feel that they would be accepted," she said.

Still, the three jubilarians are convinced that adults - and the youth who will be tomorrow's Catholic adults - are on the right track in "this sense that we are carrying out the mission of Jesus Christ," as Sr. Judanne put it.

Srs. Donna Marie and Judanne were recently part of a team judging essays written by high school students for the diocesan department of education in preparation for the Holy Father's trip to the United States in April.

"You hear that you are touching something very deep in them," Sr. Donna Marie said of the essays. "I couldn't believe that the young people today were writing what they were and that they were reading the encyclicals of Pope Benedict. It gives you new hope. You can look at the church from a negative standpoint.... But I got new hope and I thought, 'We're all right.'"