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Threshold Fall/Winter 2008
With Thankful Hearts
Sisters Susana Kindole, Mary Agnes Patterson, and Presentasia Chipeta
If you are like me, you don’t always know if your words and actions are making a positive difference in the lives of others. If you are lucky you may be told by someone, usually many years later, that your words, actions and attitude made a real impact on that person. I see that happen here at Mount St. Scholastica, particularly when alumni and former students visit the sisters who taught them.
Our ministries at the Mount center on “empowering women, especially the young, poor and those in most need, through education and sharing our Benedictine spirituality.” Education empowers people and gives them the means to develop their God-given gifts to make life better for others. Our Benedictine spirituality, with its emphasis on seeking God in everyday life, gives people insights into God’s work in their lives and helps bring meaning and peace to their service to others.
You may not see the people you are helping or know how you are making a positive impact on others, but you are. I rejoice when I see Sisters Presentasia and Susana from Tanzania prepare to graduate from Benedictine College. They have worked hard for six years, starting with learning English at Donnelly College, and graduating from Benedictine College in December, 2008! They will go home and teach and work in their Benedictine community. It is a thrill to see them and to have been part of their journey. From the August day in 2002 when seven other sisters and I met them at the airport in Kansas City until this day, I have watched them learn, grow and become mature women religious ready to be instruments of God’s work in their homeland.
Thank you for making a difference in people’s lives. Thank you for helping us make opportunities available for people to grow in faith and develop their God given talents and gifts. Thank you for caring and believing that all of us make a difference for good in our world … That in all things God may be glorified.
Mary Agnes Patterson, OSB
Director of Development & Communication