(If you don't know who Ita Ford is, I suggest reading this first - "Not Left Forgotten: Guided by the Spirit of Ita Ford")

Dear Ita,
As I sit here reading your letters, I feel compelled to write you. I write to you as a friend because, although we've never met, I've known you for years. I've read and re-read your letters and writings since I was in college. Your words have been with me in my studies, in the mission field, and in religious formation.

After leaving religious life a year ago, I wondered if your words would still resonate with me. They had meant so much to me all those years. So, tentatively, I started re-reading, wondering if it would result in the loss of a spiritual guide and heroine (I know, you'd be nauseated by those titles)

But years ago, you wrote to your niece, praying that she would find what gives life a deep meaning for her - "something worth living for, maybe even worth dying for...something that energizes you, enthuses you, enables you to keep moving ahead" (read the whole letter here) And I breathed a sigh of relief. You got it, you understood journeys, no matter what they were.

That's where I am right now - on the path for that which gives me my life deep meaning.
I thought I had found it with religious life, but no, it wasn't what God intended.
I'm not sure what my vocation is, what these next years will hold, but I'm okay with going with God's flow...for now, anyway...I think.

Despite the question marks, since I left the Sisters, to echo your own words:

"What seems to be slowly happening is an acceptance of the truth of who I am: coming to know it, see it in relation to the whole - and accepting the knowledge of who I am and where I am...coming to be comfortable with who I am, how I have been gifted for others." (retreat notes, Aug 1978-1979, p124)

Even though I'm unsure where my life is leading me and I've lost that title of "Sister", I do believe we still have a lot in common. It's incredibly obvious that you loved writing, as I do. You were witty and, truthfully, a bit nerdy. You were faithful, yet full of questions. You struggled with comprehending God's love for you in your imperfections, just as I do.

Neither of us had a journey we expected. You joined the Maryknoll Sisters and left right before vows, joined again seven years later, lost your best friend in a car accident that almost killed you too, and then died just a few months after moving to El Salvador. I, well, I have been all over the place, in and out of community.

Is all this what's meant in Jeremiah 18:5-6, one of your favorites:

"Then the word of the Lord came to me: Can I not do with you, O house of Israel, just as this potter has done? says the Lord. Just like the clay in the potter’s hand, so are you in my hand, O house of Israel"? 

In a 1977 article, you mention living in the mission field of Chile as "on the front lines of Christianity" (quoting a letter you had received using that phrase). Things are a bit different here. I called living my faith in Bolivia 'barefoot Christianity' because it was Christianity at its core, stripped to simplicity.
So, how is it that I live out my faith here in San Antonio, beyond church, beyond prayer? I work for persons who are poor and, like you, like all of us, I have no answers for them. I can only walk with them and let myself be evangelized. But the noise of God's work in others and myself isn't quite as loud as it was back then or maybe there's a lot of static my ears are foolishly focusing on instead. But I know He's here and very much alive in these people.

All this is to ask for your prayers, Ita (and readers).
Your friend is a jar of clay but she's not broken yet. God still has me in His hand.

Peace,
Amanda

Rachel Scott: What She's Teaching Me 15 Years Later

I have a number of heroes in my life.
I have heroes that have passed on long ago, never having known me physically, but somehow reach me and walk with me through life in some way.
And I have heroes who have literally been by my side at the right moment and with their personalities, life stories, and work teach and inspire me more than they know.

Lately, in this time of transition for me, I've been thinking and praying of all my heroes.
And silently thanking them.

I've written a lot about the first type, some of those who lived in seventeenth century France, one who died just a few years before I was born.
But before St. Vincent de Paul, before Ita Ford, there was Rachel Scott.

When I was in high school, I received a copy of The Journals of Rachel Scott: A Journey of Faith at Columbine High (which, by the way, aren't really her journals but writing based on her journals). Rachel and I had lots of differences but I connected with the similarities.

We were Millennial high-school juniors, she being born in '81 and I in '85.
We were aspiring writers.
We avidly journaled our thoughts, fears, and prayers.
We struggled with the faith journey - the joy of finding Him, the grief of His silence, the confusion of not knowing His path.
We believed, against all odds, that we could somehow change the world.

With her, I felt like I had a companion on the journey. Her story pushed me to continue on as I grew deeper into figuring out life and faith and the future. It didn't matter to me whether her life ended with the "do you believe in God?" question or not. I still felt that I had a hero that taught me that people like me could change the world.

 As my life went on, Rachel and her story phased out of my mind. New heroes came in, accompanying me in new ways that I needed at the time. She didn't appear again until I saw on Facebook that a movie, I'm Not Ashamed, was being made about her life.

At first, I was just excited that a movie was being made about one of my heroes almost twenty years after her death. But now, watching I'm Not Ashamed, I realize the movie's timing, Rachel Scott's story re-entering my life, was Providential for me.

It's easy to narrow Rachel's story down to her not being ashamed of Jesus. After all, that's the thought process behind the title and I could certainly understand why. It's something to admire about her - something I admire - but I think it's just a piece of the bigger message for me (and probably a message that everyone can relate to):

Be true to who you are.
Don't pretend to be someone else just for the convenience of it.

Because it's you, the true you, that will change the world.

Or, in her own words,

"Don't let your character change color with your environment. 

Find out who you are and let it stay its true color." - Rachel Scott

It's a very appropriate message for a high school student. Peer pressure, trying to figure out who you are, discovering the depths of faith and all that.

But it's also a message for me now. Almost 20 years later after her death, 15 years after reading the book.
The truth is, when you leave a religious community, you lose an identity. You're no longer "Sister". You're just you, a face in the crowd. But if being "Sister" was an identity that you discovered never fit you anyway, there's some soul searching to do.

Who is my true self?
How do I show my faith now?
How will I change the world?

And then this question appears - is "changing the world" youthful naivety?
In a way, yes. I no longer believe that the entire world can change because of someone I did or said or wrote. I'm 31 now, not 16...
...yet I think of those heroes in my life that I mentioned earlier - the ones who have physically been at my side. They've changed my world for the better, giving me the inspiration to do the same for others. That's changing the world.

I'm still trying to figure it all out but I'm following the example of Rachel -
I'm letting myself be me, even the parts of me that may not be too popular;
I'll wrestle with the words and deeds of the faith journey;
and continue to believe that one day, I will change the world.

Playing Billiards and Cleaning Floors: The Story of Sister Martina Vázquez Gordo

Sister Martina Vazquez Gordo had slowly become famous all over Spain for her service of the poor, similar to the fame Mother Teresa of Calcutta had in India or Bea Gaddy in Baltimore. Like Blessed Rosalie Rendu before her, she became a friend of the rich and the poor alike. And that is why it was all the more surprising when she was martyred on October 4, 1936 by the same soldiers she had served so faithfully.

Stories of Sister Martina are different than the flowery descriptions I've found of some of the martyrs. Rather, she seems like the type of person you'd like to sit and have a beer with (that is, if Sisters drank...) I can imagine her with a loud belly laugh telling others of her blunt unconventional actions while, at the same time, remaining humbly silent about the many ministries she founded to serve the poor of Spain (that is, unless she could use the opportunity for fundraising!).

One such story is in her beginning years as a Daughter of Charity. She became the superior of the school Colegio de la Milagrosa in Zamora, Spain. There was poor enrollment in the school and soon Sr Martina found out why - people in the community thought the school gave inferior education. So, what did she do? She went out in the community and spread word of the school to boost enrollment. Admirable, but this is itself isn't that interesting of a feat. What is interesting is how she did it. Discretely (I'm assuming out of her habit - the cornette is pretty noticeable), she entered one of the men's clubs in the community. Surely, the club was full of cigar smoke and alcohol - certainly not the typical hang-out of a nun unless you're telling jokes. But Sr Martina struck up conversation with some of the men playing billiards, attempting to convince them to enroll their children in the school. Maybe annoyed, one man jokingly said "Fine! If you make this shot, I'll send my son there!" She took the cue stick and, lo and behold, made the shot. Upon enrolling his child, the man must have figured out that this billiards-playing woman was actually the superior, Sister Martina. From there, the school flourished....and so did her fame.

After her stint at the school, she was missioned to a hospital and school in Segorbe. The institution was in much debt and very poor physical condition. But similar to what she did for Colegio de la Milagrosa, Sr Martina turned the situation upside down. She not only built relationships with wealthy families to improve the physical condition of the buildings, but she also used her own personal family money to do so. But she wasn't satisfied with what the institution and the Daughters were already doing - she knew the poor needed more.

So she founded a soup kitchen called "Gota de Leche", a consultation center for nursing mothers, a center for the transient poor who needed help getting employment, and created the Charitable Board of Segorbe, a group of wealthy families to assist maintain the nursing home and hospital for the elderly. Oh, not to mention, she also taught courses in the school.
It's a wonder this woman even slept.

Soon, she was elected onto the Provincial Council but, after five years, she was off on a new adventure - going to North Africa to nurse the wounded Spanish troops from the Battle of Annual. Sr Martina did everything she could to serve the soldiers, even cleaning floors, stating often that they and the poor are what would lead her to heaven. At one point, a truck overflowing with wounded soldiers came and there was no more room in the hospital for all of them. The officers' club was nearby and would do perfectly. But one of the high-ranking officials refused. But Sr Martina didn't accept his answer so submissively. She went to a higher power - the war minister. Not only did he allow the use of the club as a temporary hospital, but he appointed her Captain General of the military, perhaps the highest title in the Spanish Army, which gave her the authority to do whatever it was she wanted.

Three years later, at the end of the war, she was sent back to Segorbe, though not before befriending the Muslim leaders in the area who gifted her a silk cloth to be used for the Virgin. It would be ten more years before the troubles would begin. Around 1936, Sr Martina started to become suspicious of the new government and its movement against the Church. One day, fearing a takeover of the house, the Sisters consumed all the hosts, prepared to be booted out of the hospital. And that they were. Told that they had to leave or the soldiers would bomb the hospital, the soldiers led them to an abandoned house, where they remained locked in for a few months.

Soon, like Sister Josefa after her, she got the premonition that she would be martyred. So she prepared for her death by making confession. Since a priest obviously couldn't enter into the makeshift jail the Sisters lived in, she improvised. Like Father Damien who confessed by yelling from one boat to another in the movie Molokai, Sr Martina confessed through signs in the window. When the soldiers came for her, they came for her alone. The Sisters cried to accompany her but the soldiers wouldn't allow it. Placed in a truck, Sr Martina bluntly told the soldiers You're going to kill me and so there's no need to take me far away. When the time came for her to be martyred, her killers asked her to turn her back to them. She absolutely refused. I want to die facing you like Christ and also like Christ, I forgive you.

With holy water, she blessed herself and kissed the crucifix, saying If I have offended you in anything, I ask forgiveness and if you kill me, I forgive you … when you want, you can fire your weapons. With her facing them, they shot and, in typical strong Sr Martina fashion, the two shots in her neck and face didn't kill her right away. With the strength she had left, she yelled My God, have mercy on me!

With that, Sr Martina Vazquez Gordo - the billiards player, the Capital General, the friend of Christians and Muslims, the admirable Daughter of Charity - fell into a ditch and died. She was 68 years old and had been a Daughter of Charity for over 30 years.

She is one of the many Daughters of Charity to be beatified this October, all martyrs of the Spanish Civil War. You can read the story of a fellow Daughter of Charity martyr, Sister Josefa Martinez Perez, here.

"Sisters, We Have to Be Courageous": The Story of Sister Josefa

Her name was Sister Josefa Martinez Perez. She seemed like any other Spanish Daughter of Charity in the 1930s, donned in a low white cornette and blue dress, walking the hallways of the hospital. Spain was at the height of its civil war but the Daughters continued their work, as they always had in the past during times of turmoil. Yet, as times got worse, Sister Josefa warned her fellow Sisters "Don't be afraid. We have to be courageous. Sisters, let us prepare ourselves because martyrdom will touch some of us" She was right. On October 15, 1936, she was taken away in a truck to be executed.

Her story begins in Alberique (Valencia), Spain where she was born in 1898. At the age of 27, she entered the Daughters of Charity Seminary, inspired by her membership in the Association of the Children of Mary, a co-fraternity for young women run by the Daughters of Charity. After Seminary, she was sent to her first (and what would be also her last) mission - the Provincial Hospital of Valencia. There she would stay for ten years, working in a ward for abandoned children and then one for women with infectious diseases.

In 1936, the Marxists took over the hospital and expelled the Daughters of Charity. It wasn't simply a matter of asking the 100 Sisters in the hospital to move somewhere else, but rather as a way to expel the community of the Daughters of Charity as a whole. So, for their own safety, the Sisters split up - a repeat of what the Daughters had done years ago during the French Revolution - hoping to one day be reunited and live once again as a normal religious community.

Sister Josefa stripped herself of the cornette and dress she had worn for over ten years and headed to her family's house in her hometown of Alberique. Things there were relatively calm, unlike what some of her companions were experiencing wherever they were hiding. But one day, in September, her brother-in-law was taken away for being a Catholic and doing charitable works. When they arrived, Sister Josefa pleaded "let him go and kill me! He has three small children and expecting a fourth". But they wouldn't accept her offer and he was arrested and executed anyway.

She probably had an idea that they would return. And they did, less than a month later on October 14th. However, probably to her surprise, they took away not only her but also her pregnant sister. Her sister Natalia, now a widow after her husband's execution, left behind three small children in the house when the two of them were taken away. When they arrived in the prison, Sister Josefa spent all her time in prayer, pleading to God and the militants that she would sacrifice herself for her sister's life.

Some hours later, in darkness, the prisoners were thrown into a truck. As Sister Josefa stepped into the bed of the truck, she once again pleaded for them to free her sister. Probably tired of her insistence and maybe even inspired by her sacrifice, they let Natalia go. The last memory Natalia would have of her sister Josefa is a hug they shared, in which Sister Josefa whispered "see you in eternity". With that, the truck left, leaving Natalia behind.

The truck drove to the outskirts of Alberique at El Puente de los Perros, where every prisoner in the truck were executed, including Sister Josefa, who had sacrificed her own life for her sister.

Some Daughters of Charity and Vincentian priests martyred
during the Spanish Civil War

It turned out that Sister Josefa wouldn't be alone in her martyrdom. Dozens of her companions, fellow Daughters of Charity, would also be martyred during that war, many in groups but some alone as Sister Josefa. This coming October, twelve of those martyrs, including Sister Josefa, will become Blessed by being beatified by Pope Benedict XVI.



Sister Josefa Perez Martinez, pray for us!

(More stories of these courageous Daughters of Charity to come!!)

Sources (for those interested):

• "Daughters of Charity, Martyrs (Valencia, 1936)". Vincentian Online Library Trans. Charles T. lock. <http://famvin.org/wiki/Daughters_of_Charity,_Martyrs_(Valencia,_1936)>
• Infante Barrera, Sor Angeles. "Hermanas Mártires De Valencia, Perfil Biográfico." FAMVIN Noticias. <http://famvin.org/es/2011/06/28/hermanas-martires-de-valencia-perfil-biografico/>.
• "Un Arzobispo De Valencia, 12 Hijas De La Caridad Y Una Seglar Asesinadas En 1936 Rumbo a Los Altares" Religión En Libertad, 28 June 2011.
• "Spanish Civil War (35)." Hagiography Circle. <http://newsaints.faithweb.com/martyrs/MSPC35.htm>.
• Chento, Javier F. "Hacia La Beatificación De Un Grupo De Mártires De La Familia Vicenciana En España." FAMVIN Noticias.http://famvin.org/es/2012/11/10/hacia-la-beatificacion-de-un-grupo-de-martires-de-la-familia-vicenciana-en-espana
• my research buddy, Fr John Freund CM from FAMVIN!

Not Left Forgotten: Guided by the Spirit of Ita Ford

Forty-some years ago, in a house on Westminster Place in Saint Louis, just a few blocks away from the current Provincial House of the Daughters of Charity, a thirty-something woman completed her novitiate. She probably spent lots of time in the chapel, praying about her future vocation as a missionary. She may have wandered the garden, backyard, or the neighborhood, reflecting as she walked. She may have had funny stories there because of the antics of her and her fellow novices. But soon her life would change and Westminster Place would become only a memory. Soon, she would be sent on mission to La Bandera, Chile.

By now, this woman would be 72 years old, perhaps approaching her last years of foreign mission or maybe joining the other elderly Sisters at Maryknoll's motherhouse in Ossining. But none of that was meant to be. In December of 1980, at the age of 40, Ita Ford was martyred, along with three others - Sr Maura Clarke, Sr Dorothy Kazel and lay missionary Jean Donovan.

I found that house on Westminster Place, paused, and prayed. This was no ordinary former novitiate to me, of which there are plenty in St Louis. This was not just a historical building. It meant something deep to me that it was the former residence of Sr Ita Ford, who has been a personal hero of mine since high school.

Don’t know who she is? I didn’t either until then. In high school, I was somehow introduced to her. I can’t remember now if it was through Spanish class (as my Spanish teacher knew Ita’s companion in death, Maura Clarke) or religion class. Ita had died before I was even born in a far away country I didn’t know, yet I somehow felt connected to her. That intimate connection continued for years, although all I knew about her was from her short biography Missionary Martyr and anything I could find on the Internet.

Ita was a New Yorker, a relative of the Maryknoll martyr of China Francis X. Ford. She entered the Maryknoll Sisters after graduating from high school but was asked to leave the novitiate right before vows because of poor health. That didn't deter her, since she entered again seven years later. This would be her time at Westminster Place, certainly a more peaceful time for her than the first. She had changed and things had changed. The Maryknoll Sisters took on the spirit of Vatican II, taking on a healthier and less institutional formation. She would take her vows in St Louis and then be missioned to La Bandera, Chile. She would stay there for years and then, following the plea of Archbishop Oscar Romero, would volunteer to go to El Salvador and, just a few months after arriving, that is where she would be murdered, killed for all that she was doing to serve the poor.

That is pretty much all I knew about her until 2005, when a collection of her letters and writings, titled "Here I Am, Lord", was published. She was suddenly made real. She was witty and sometimes sarcastic. She was a writer. She was reflective. She struggled with the love God and others had for her. She had a great love for the poor. She, strangely enough, has reminded me of myself sometimes. For reasons I can't explain, I believe she was one of those people that led me to Bolivia in 2007. I have read her letters and writings many times - as a college student interested in foreign mission, as a missionary in Bolivia, as a woman who left her religious community and now as a postulant - and she speaks to me every time in a different light.

As I stood before her old novitiate, I thanked her for what she was meant to me - she was a woman I never met, whose voice I've never heard, whose work I've never seen, yet a woman who has lived on through the influence she has had for me. Saint Therese, certainly a saint quite different than Ita Ford, commented that she wanted to spend time in heaven doing good for people on earth. Although Ita never said anything like that, I believe she has done the same for me. And I believe, as I go through formation with the Daughters of Charity and as I later go through various missions serving the poor, she is and will continue to be with me.

Thirty-two years ago today....

A shot was heard, its sound's echo eventually reaching all the ends of the earth. As a Salvadoran archbishop prepared the gifts of bread and wine at the offertory after the homily, a shot went through his chest. He grabbed unto the altar cloth to steady himself but fell backwards, with the communion hosts now scattered on the floor, and died.

It was a shot that would eventually ring in the whole world's ears. His name was Oscar Romero. He had only been archbishop of San Salvador, the capital, for three years - certainly a short term and maybe not enough to make a real impact. But a real impact he did make.

El Salvador was at the start of a horrible bloody civil war - the military-led government against leftist guerrilla groups, a civil war that would continue for 12 more years after Romero's martyrdom. People were disappearing, people were being murdered daily, some streets littered with blood. The Church was being persecuted, as the government thought priests and nuns who worked with the poor were subversives, egging on the poor against the government. I know several Sisters that lived during that time period in El Salvador and they recall that they've never been more scared in their life. One Sister, a young girl at the time, was walking to school when she saw a young naked body lying face down on the sidewalk surrounded by military soldiers. She held her books more tightly, lowered her eyes to her feet so no one would notice her and switched to the other sidewalk. Another Sister remembers bombs going off near the convent. The novice mistress ordered them to hide wherever they could and they scattered. She hid in a closet, where she stayed for hours afraid to move even after the explosions stopped. Meanwhile, the novice mistress assumed her dead because she couldn't find her.

The time was tense and everyone who spoke out was soon killed or mysteriously disappeared. But Archbishop Romero chose not to care about that. He knew he might be killed - he even said so. It was a radical act of courage to speak up for those who were gone every day, to denounce the violence in his publicly-heard homilies over the radio. He refused to attend government functions he was invited to "until the repression stops". He wrote a letter to US President Jimmy Carter, begging him to stop sending arms to El Salvador.

But Romero wasn't radical for radical's sake. He probably never saw his ideas as "radical" and I won't even say his ideas were radical. Everything he said was said out of love. The same love of neighbor Jesus Christ called for. The same love cloistered nun St. Therese called for in his "Little Way". The same love St. Vincent de Paul called for in his love for the poor. In fact, something Romero said in February 1980 could well have been something Saint Vincent de Paul would have said some 300 years earlier: "We believe that from the transcendence of the Gospel, we can assess what the life of the poor consists of and we also believe that placing ourselves on the side of the poor and attempting to give them life we will know what the eternal truth of the Gospel consists of."

Monseñor Oscar Romero is the "unofficial" saint of Latin America, a region I feel a deep affinity for, starting in high school and continuing until now, an affinity that led me to live in Bolivia for two years and visit a number of Latin American countries throughout the years. But that is not the reason I remember him today.

I remember him today as an outstanding example of what I, as a believer in Jesus Christ and follower of the spirituality of Saint Vincent de Paul, should be. I'm not called to be an archbishop, probably not called to be a martyr, probably not called to speak out against injustice publicly despite fear of death, but I am called to love all, most especially love the poor as St Vincent, St Louise, St Elizabeth Ann and Monseñor Romero did....for that is where Christ is and that is where the gritty work of the Gospel lies. Love is what will win, love is what Christ tells us to do more than anything else.

“Let us not tire of preaching love; it is the force that will overcome the world. Let us not tire of preaching love. Though we see that waves of violence succeed in drowning the fire of Christian love. Love must win out; it is the only thing that can." - Archbishop Oscar Romero (1917 - 1980)

Who is one of your personal heroes? Why do you remember them?

Yet Another Daughter of Charity Feast Day!

It seems like every month, there is at least one Daughter of Charity feast day. In November, we have three in a row!

Today's feast day is for Blessed Marie Anne Vaillot and Blessed Odile Baumgarten, two martyrs of the French Revolution, part of a group known as the "Martyrs of Angers" (a town in France). Another martyr of the French Revolution, also a Daughter of Charity, Marguerite Rutan, was beatified less than a year ago.

You can find a great homily about these two martyred Sisters here by Fr Richard McCullen, one of our former Superior Generals.

How blessed am I to belong to a community with so many saints!

(Picture from the Daughters of Charity Australia website)