Lisa and her grandmother

Lisa and Barbara

You never know what one kind act will do for a person, yet, in an instant, lives of generations can be transformed forever. My grandmother is a beautiful example of this. When she wanted to go to the University to become a teacher it was only through the generous gift of $50.00 from an acquaintance that she was able to fulfill her dream. She became a teacher as did her son, my father and so thus I learned through my family the transforming power of education. This one kind act has influenced and impacted my life forever.

Though I was born in the Midwest (Southern Illinois) my family moved to the Southwest part of the United States when I was two years old.  I spent my childhood in Phoenix, Arizona, a large city in the middle of a Sonoran desert. I am the oldest of three children (one sister, one brother). As a young person, church was one of my favorite places to be.  I was born after Vatican II and the community that gathered at the retreat center where my family worshiped, really tried to embody and become church to one another. Church was a place of welcome, where people cared for one another and met God in word and sacrament. We had incredible liturgies and my love of liturgical music and the active participation of the assembly began through these childhood experiences of church.

I met the Society of the Sacred Heart as a graduate student studying theology at Catholic Theological Union in Chicago. I had been working in pastoral ministry as a lay minister in the Catholic Church in Phoenix, in the areas of Youth Ministry and Liturgy. I had a wonderful ministerial life and loved what I was doing but I always longed to be about something larger than the ministry I was doing by myself. I longed to do ministry with others. To be about something much larger, something I now call community.

At Catholic Theological Union all lay students are encouraged to have a spiritual director.  I did not know very many names on the list that I was given, but had noticed a prayerful woman at the daily masses in the chapel. That woman was Barbara Bowe, RSCJ, a biblical scholar and one of the most passionate, prayerful educators I have ever met. She became my spiritual director.  It was through long conversations with Barbara, deep prayer with the Cornell community in Chicago, and the love I experienced in every RSCJ I met, that my heart found a home as one of Sophie’s daughters. A home built on gospel love and Cor Unum.

One aspect of the Society of the Sacred Heart that drew me and continues to call to my heart is our internationality. I find God’s heartbeat pulsing through creation in the 44 countries around the world where together I stand with my sisters as “the world sets our agenda” and as we RSCJ find ways to listen for and respond to the cries of the wounded heart of humanity. Whether the Society is working with the youth of Budapest, the popular education projects of Mexico, or rebuilding the city, house by house in New Orleans in the United States, I am one with God’s heart and each of my sisters wherever they are.

While I have done many ministries since entering the Society, (teaching computers and theology, coaching softball, coordinating campus ministry, planning liturgical celebrations…) I find the ministry I am doing right now in the Province most fulfilling. I currently work in Outreach Ministry in the Vocation Ministry Office for our US Province, and consult in the Formation to Mission Process with many lay collaborators in one of the Network of Sacred Heart Schools in San Francisco. My ministry is to connect people with our mission, of “discovering and making known God’s love.” I do this through retreat work, workshops, presentations, website development and other media initiatives.

I believe that Sophie’s understanding of Education, much like the kind act that my Grandmother experienced, has the power to transform and heal the world. It is why I live my life as an educator of the heart, God’s heart, in the Society of the Sacred Heart.

“Do not think about the future, leave that to the Heart of Jesus; use the present moment to love, to act, to follow.”      
- Madeleine Sophie Barat

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