5/6/22 - Friday Forget-Me-Nots by Jim Silcott

Photo Caption: 4th and 5th grades creeking at High Banks Park.

Dear Our Lady of Peace Family,

This week we were graced by a visit from five Sisters who were staying at the convent this week. They are from the order of Daughters of Holy Mary of the Heart of Jesus. They spoke with quiet but enthusiastic passion about their vocation to religious life. Many of our students have not had the experience of seeing and getting to speak to Sisters. What a blessing for our school.

My own experience with Sisters goes way back to the first parish I attended with my family at Immaculate Heart of Mary Church in Baltimore, Maryland. My earliest memory is going to Mass one Sunday morning. We found ourselves in the pew directly in front of a group of Sisters. When I was done kneeling for my prayer before Mass, I realized that the Sisters behind me were still kneeling, I sat at the edge of the pew slightly afraid to get to close. One of the Sisters gently touched my shoulder and eased me back to let me know that if was okay if I sat. My first grade teacher was a Sister as was the principal whose office I had to visit just before Christmas that year ( A tale for another time!).

At St, Philip Neri School in Northport, New York where I spent four wonderful years, our principal was a Sister. At the end of fifth grade our young teacher announced to the class that she would be leaving St. Philip in the summer to enter the convent. This was about the same time as the movie, The Trouble with Angels came out in the theaters were Haley Mills after a year in an all-girls Catholic School decides, after rebelling the entire school year, decides that she, too, would enter the convent. My reaction to our teacher and to Haley Mills was mixed. Both were young and attractive women. The Sisters I had known were dressed all in black habits with black veil held up by a stiff white head Coif. I couldn’t imagine them as Sisters. At the same time, I remember being impressed with the courage of their calling to this special life.

In the late sixties many Sisters abandoned their habits which was quite a change for them and for us. Sister Sarah, at Our Lady of Victory School in Columbus where I finished elementary school, not only wore regular clothes but played the guitar and for a time I took lessons from her.

At St. Charles we were taught by priests and men, with one woman on the faculty. There was, however, a convent in the school (site of the present development office there) where a group of German Sisters lived. They were still in traditional garb and their service to God was to housekeep and cook for the Priests who also lived within the walls of the school.

While this arrangement may seem archaic today, it was considered normal back then. Why wouldn’t Sisters serve Priests? Times have changed.

When I started my career in education at Bishop Watterson there were about a dozen Sisters on the faculty, the same Dominicans who served Our Lady of Peace for so many years. There was one Franciscan Sister also on the faculty, Sister Margaret Hoffman (sister of our own Mrs. Gruber and Great Aunt to Catherine Cervenec in first grade!). When I student taught there, Sister Margaret was my very supportive cooperating teacher. All of the Sisters there were wonderful women who helped me immensely in my early teaching career. They also came to my assistance one November afternoon when I crashed a motorcycle in the parking lot of the school (Another tale for another time).

My career as a Latin teacher began there because of Sister Canisia, who had taught Latin for many years at Watterson. She got angry one summer with the Mother Superior at the Convent there because she thought Canisia was too old to drive the convent automobile. She left that convent, and Watterson, and went back to the Mother House a week before school began. The Principal, John Durant, knew that I had graduated from St. Charles with its obligatory Latin requirement and informed me that I would now be teaching some Latin along with English.



I am so grateful to have had Sisters in my life all these years. I learned that they were ordinary people who listened to that special call and had the courage, like Mary, to say yes. We need to pray for increased vocations to religious life and the priesthood so that our Church may continue to flourish. Their passion and immense faith bring us all closer to our God.

Jim Silcott