When U.S. and Mexican Customs officers spot the red Ford F150 pickup truck, both know what to expect. The nun who is driving the truck is on her way to Las Flores/Nuevo Progreso, Mexico to make her rounds. She’s been making these rounds for 29 years, delivering beans and rice, tuition for school children, clothes for those in need.
The nun, Sister Maureen Crosby, a member of the Sisters of St. Dorothy, crosses the bridge three to four times a week. Her mission: “I am trying to help people stay in their own country, assisting them with food, clothing, meds, education and prayer.” In the immigration discussion, we tend to forget about those who are helping people stay in their homeland, helping them find a way to make a better life where they are.
At 76, she jokes, “Nuns don’t retire.” These last 15 years, she has logged 250,000 miles on her truck, which she named Joseph. Sister Maureen is looking for someone to take over the ministry when she does retire, but people are afraid to cross into Mexico, she said.
This March 8-14, as we recognize women religious during National Catholic Sisters Week, which falls within National Women’s History Month, we say thank you to all our sisters serving in our diocese. Most of them serve behind the scenes, like Sister Maureen or Sister Rosalia Vadala, with the Sisters of St. Francis of Assisi.
Sister Rosalia, 78, first came to the Rio Grande Valley in 1987, and in 1994 started assisting immigrant families living in the colonias. Since she started Proyecto Santo Niño de Atocha, she has helped thousands become U.S. citizens. She also expanded her ministry into Reynosa, Mexico to reach out to maquiladora workers, teaching them how to speak out and obtain better working conditions.
While the numbers of religious sisters nationally and close to home are diminishing – we have 63 in active ministry, half of what we had 10 years ago – the fruits of their labors continue to grow here in the Rio Grande Valley. More than that, their work inspires us to follow their example.
Sister Rose Marie Quilter, of the Society of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, who recently returned to the area, recognizes that vowed religious life has an important place in the Church. “While we will likely get smaller, we are here to support the laity,” she said. Sister Rose reminds us we are all called by our Baptism to share in the work of the Church. That means we as the laity need to do our part in our community.
I invite you to reach out and meet the religious sisters who give so generously to the people through the work they do. Their faith and trust in God pours out in their love for the people they work with. You have met several of these women featured on the pages of The Valley Catholic and elsewhere. Among them, Sister Norma Pimentel, a Missionary of Jesus, who has caught even the Holy Father’s attention with her humanitarian response. More than 150,000 immigrant men, women and children from Central America have come to the respite center since it opened in 2014.
This month in Those Who Serve, we feature Sister Zita Telkamp, 85, with the Sisters of Divine Providence. Sister Zita, who has run a shelter in San Benito (La Posada Providencia) for indigent immigrants, asylees and asylum seekers since 2008, will celebrate 70 years as a religious in August.
Our sisters work in all areas of ministry – education, social services, health care, community outreach, and immigration. Working in education, we find Sister Cynthia Mello, a Sister of St. Dorothy who serves as superintendent of Catholic Schools. Working with the elderly, Sister Jane Frances Ambrose of the Sisters of the Holy Spirit of Mary Immaculate prays at the bedside of residents at Ebony Lake and Brownsville Rehabilitation Nursing Home.
Praying behind the scenes are cloistered nuns like Sister Martha A. Garcia, of the Capuchin Poor Clares in Alamo. Out in the colonias, the Missionary Sisters of the Immaculate Heart of Mary who built St. Anne Church and started Proyecto Desarrollo provide needed services to the people in the Pueblo de Palmas in Peñitas.
Further west, we find three sisters who moved here from Crookston, Minn., Benedictine Sisters Nancy Boushey, Luella Walsh and Fran Solum. The retreat house they built in Rio Grande City serves as an oasis for those who need a spiritual retreat. They also started a radio station, KSGS 99.9 FM, eight years ago.
While we try to highlight the work of our religious women, some sisters remain under the radar. Among them are poets, painters, musicians. Women of many talents.
Over the years, I feel blessed to have developed close friendships with some of these amazing women. They compel me to continually discern how God is calling me to action.
Sister Maureen’s courage, her energy, her devotion, keep her adding miles to her red Ford pickup as she crosses back and forth from the United States and Mexico. If you accompany her someday as she makes her rounds in Las Flores, you’ll discover you have little to complain about. Life is different for thousands living across the border, and this one nun, past retirement age, is doing all she can to give the people she meets a hand in the journey.
Her first stop is usually to Lupe’s house, the woman who lives near the corner school. The minute the children see the red truck, they flock to it in the hopes Sister Maureen will have a treat for them.
Sister Maureen started going in 1990 and her love for the people keeps her returning. She has seen both success and despair with the three generations of families she has worked with. The youngest call her abuela now. Others call her by her first name, “Moreen.” She worries about the children who get caught up with the drug cartels. The cartels are recruiting younger kids these days. Some of the fathers drink too much, some mothers make a living sewing, others doing things they are not proud of. But Sister Maureen does not go there to judge them. She goes to give them hope.
She and all our sisters in the Rio Grande Valley carry out a legacy of service dating back to 1852. Think back to the four sisters of the Congregation of the Incarnate Word and Blessed Sacrament who left Lyons, France in 1852 to sail by ship for 52 days to Texas. They didn’t know exactly what was waiting for them in the most southern part of the United States, but they came anyway. They opened the first Catholic School in Brownsville, Villa Maria of the Incarnate Word, in 1853, 20 years before the first public school. In 1923, the Sisters of Mercy opened one of the first hospitals in Brownsville and in the Valley.
This is but a glimpse as to how religious sisters respond to the needs of a community. Today, Sister Rosalia encourages us to “look and see what’s not being done.” In other words, get to work.
“When God inspires you, follow the inspiration. Don’t let others tell you it can’t be done. He will give you the courage.”
To all the women religious in our diocese, past and present, I thank you each for your example. I pray that we can respond accordingly and do our part.
