Ministry encouraged to take part
Sr. Elaine LaCanne, OP, left, and Za'Nia Coleman are paired for a semester as part of a National Catholic Sisters Week project to connect young women studying at St. Catherine University in St. Paul, Minn., with women religious. Sr. LaCanne has a ministry in a St. Paul suburb and Coleman is a freshman at the university.
Next month's National Catholic Sisters Week will highlight the lives and ministries of U.S. women religious; and the organization hosting the week encourages the Catholic health ministry to participate. The week runs March 8-14.
The second annual tribute aims to build awareness of Catholic sisters and their work in order to inspire people, to dispel myths about sisters and to generate interest in religious life among young women. "It's an opportunity to share the stories of sisters who helped build missions and ministries that help other people — and to share what those sisters are doing today," said Sr. Mary Soher, OP, co-executive director of the Hilton Sisters Project National Catholic Sisters Week. That program is housed at St. Catherine University in St. Paul, Minn., and funded by a three-year, roughly $3 million grant from the Conrad N. Hilton Foundation.
The week is held in conjunction with National Women's History Month. It overlaps the Vatican's Year of Consecrated Life that started Nov. 30 and runs through Feb. 2, 2016.
The nationalcatholicsistersweek.org website provides ideas and resources for organizations to mark the week. Among the two dozen-plus ideas: Organizations can create photo displays spotlighting impactful sisters, hold an event to illuminate the work of sisters who founded important ministries, host panel discussions with sisters, create blogs for traveling sisters to share their overseas work with community members back home, organize a retreat where community members can spend time with sisters and host "jam sessions" in which sisters with musical talent can play tunes with others. Organizations can post their events to the National Catholic Sisters Week website.
The project's website also provides posters, ad templates and prayer resources for organizations observing the week.
Organizations also can submit to the National Catholic Sisters Week program stories and photos of sisters they wish to honor, for an online collection.
Participants who promote their sisters' ministries and lives on their own social media channels can work with the National Catholic Sisters Week to share those tributes on its Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, YouTube and Google+ channels.
Copyright © 2015 by the Catholic Health Association
of the United States
For reprint permission, contact Betty Crosby or call (314) 253-3477.