Missionary Sisters of the Sacred Heart of Jesus

St. Frances Xavier Cabrini Award Presented in Chicago

September 23, 2020

Earlier in September during a special Zoom event, Cardinal Cupich presented Sr. Cathy Fedewa, CSFN, Immigrant Outreach Coordinator at Cabrini Retreat Center, with the St. Frances Xavier Cabrini Award. This award recognizes a leader in the Immigration Ministry’s network who embodies Mother Cabrini’s missionary and pastoral spirit in tireless service to immigrants.

A number of the Missionary Sisters attended the ceremony including Sr. Bernadette Anello, Sr. Antonina Avitabile, Sr. Ayantu Bishaka, Sr. Joaquina Costa, Sr. Catherine Garry, Sr. Genet Henok and Sr. Bridget Zanin.

Sr. Cathy’s spirit of Mother Cabrini goes beyond any doors and into the community making an everlasting impact on our immigrant sisters and brothers. She brings a wealth of experience and valuable insights as she serves individuals and families through active ministry in schools, parishes, and social agencies. As Coordinator of Immigrant Outreach and Advocacy at the Cabrini Retreat Center in Des Plaines, Illinois, she responds to the challenges immigrants face in new and creative ways.

She has visited and prayed with detained immigrants at the Broadview Detention Center and tutored a Chinese student through the Aquinas Literacy Center. Sr. Cathy serves on the Board of Bethany House of Hospitality for Women, which offers housing and support services to young immigrant women as they start the path for independence. (The Missionary Sisters also financially support Bethany House.)

Sr. Cathy provided leadership for the Chicagoland Share the Journey Walk partnering with the Archdiocese of Chicago, Catholic Charities USA, Catholic Relief Services (CRS), the National Shrine of St. Frances Xavier Cabrini, the Mother Cabrini League, St. Anthony Hospital and Maryville Academy.

In addition, Sister Cathy is a member of Sisters and Brothers of Immigrants (SBI) and the Interfaith Community for Detained Immigrants (ICDI), and has blessed Pastoral Migratoria with her many talents on the Immigration Ministry’s annual Posada and National Migration Week activities.

Summer Virtual Sacred Space @ Cabrini Retreat Center

July 23, 2020

Many teens have been unable to make their long awaited Kairos Retreat in the spring and summer. While there is no way to replace the 4-day retreat experience, Cabrini Retreat Center in Des Plaines, IL, has been able to offer “virtual sacred space” as a way to keep the spirit of Kairos (which means God’s time) alive.

Today’s youth have grown up communicating through social media, which is a blessing in this era of physical social distancing. Teens now experience a much needed “Cabrini welcome” in a new form.

Cabrini Sisters and friends are welcome to view posts and encouraged to “like us” Posts can be found on Instagram at @cabriniretreatcenter and on Facebook at Cabrini Retreat Center Kairos Connections.

Below is a sample posting:
Cabrini Retreat Center Kairos Connections
Published by Frances Cabrini · July 8 ·
“Not only did Cabrini house me for 3 1⁄2 days, it changed my life. That building allows for exponential growth amongst groups of teenagers, and it begins to feel like a second home. Cabrini is staffed with very welcoming staff members who will go above and beyond to make you feel comfortable while you stay there! On my Kairos retreat, I was given the opportunity to grow closer with people in my grade, and I wouldn’t have had time to do that if it wasn’t for Cabrini opening their doors to us. Each and every moment at Cabrini felt like
a different universe; the air truly is better at Cabrini.”

Retreat Centers during the Pandemic

June 11, 2020

~ by Mark Piper, National Catholic Reporter

I have been the director of the Cenacle Retreat and Conference Center in the Lincoln Park neighborhood of Chicago since June 10, 2019. The last few months have been difficult on all of us who operate retreat centers. We are used to the cycle of welcoming and sending forth, of hellos and goodbyes, but waiting so long after a goodbye to say hello once more is new to us.

In late February, we took note and precautions due to the pandemic. But by March 13, before the state of Illinois issued its shelter-in-place mandate we chose to close to the public until we could safely reopen. As with retreat centers across the world, [we] provide the space for people of all walks of life to go out and do justice, love, mercy and transform our world. [At retreat centers] whoever they [may be], they are welcome to grace our simple, holy halls.

Every [retreat] colleague of mine has been burdened and vexed. We’re figuring out how to pivot, how to live our mission as places of welcome, acceptance and healing, under new and existential duress: necessary prolonged closures.

in Illinois, Nancy Golen, Director of the Cabrini Retreat Center in Des Plaines, shared that these mandates have, “caused Cabrini to be separated from our ministerial identity as a place of physical sacred space.”

“Approximately 80% of the guests at Cabrini are youth. The closure came at a time when we would have been at full capacity with multiple Kairos Retreats,” she said. “For decades, we’ve welcomed and cared for young people. As we plan our reopening there are many considerations to restore that sense of sacred safety. Cabrini’s sponsors have been open to offering the retreat space for other forms of service.”

Civic or health care representatives have approached some centers about utilizing their space to house first responders, quarantined individuals or homeless persons. Some obliged. Other retreat centers have found that impractical due to vulnerable populations who live on-site. Nancy said that, “Due to the way our facility is designed, and the nature of COVID-19, no fit was found for the space to date.”

“We miss our guests. Despite bleak financial realities, we maintain a trust in a God of love and abundance,” said Mark Piper. “A trust that, when it is safe, we will say ‘welcome’ once again. Until that day of our next holy hello, we’re in anxious solidarity, praying this long goodbye.

To read the entire article

https://www.ncronline.org/news/coronavirus/young-voices/update-your-national-parks-soul-retreat-centers-during-pandemic

The 2020 Global Perspective: What are We Seeing? – A Webinar

June 11, 2020

Wednesday, June 17th – 10 am CDT

In he midst of a pandemic, there are responses that can bring out the best or the worst in us.

Throughout our Cabrini World, we have seen many signs of hope and solidarity. In this webinar session we invite you to take a look; you are invited to a “see” change.

Our presenter will be Sr. Bernadette Anello, MSC, General Councilor

Sr. Bernadette is a member of the MSC General Council and resides in Rome. Her primary areas of responsibility are formation and communication.

Her ministry experiences have been in teaching, retreat work, vocation promotion, campus ministry, parish ministry, fundraising and formation work with candidates, novices and Sisters in first vows.

To access the webinar: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/87437736547

Giving Tuesday Assists Immigrant Children with e-Learning

May 13, 2020

The National Shrine of St. Frances Xavier Cabrini joined the Cabrini Retreat Center on Tuesday, May 5th for GivingTuesdayNow, a day of Global Action for giving and unity in response to COVID-19. It was the decision of Sister Bridget Zanin, MSC, Director of the National Shrine, to explore the needs of immigrants in our local community in Chicago. Nancy Golen, Director at the Cabrini Retreat Center located in Des Plaines, IL, put [the Shrine staff] in contact with Exodus World Service, a Christian organization that empowers people to be champions for refugees.

Exodus World Service discussed with us the need for Chromebooks. During this pandemic, immigrant children in Chicago are falling increasingly behind in their education. They don’t have access to computers for e-learning, so, we dedicated this Global Day of Giving to raise a minimum of $1000.00 for the purchase of four Chromebooks for four immigrant families.

Mother Cabrini based her work on the “education of the heart.” As a teacher, her aim was always the formation of the whole person as it instills a special concern for those in need. We asked each of our communities if they would help us “educate the hearts” of immigrant children and we were delighted in their response as we were able to provide Exodus World Service with the funds to purchase five Chromebooks for five immigrant families

MSC Prayer Partners at Cabrini Retreat Center

April 28, 2020

Cabrini Retreat Center has been unable to welcome guests on site since March 16th. Guests scheduled to make a retreat are feeling the loss of their time away with God and their faith community. Especially impacted are the high school seniors who plan and prepare all year for their four-day Kairos Retreat.

However, the spiritual ministry of Cabrini Retreat Center continues at this time through our Sister Prayer Partners.

Sr. Grace Waters, MSC began coordinating the Sisters’ Prayer Partner ministry in 2006. She assigns a willing Missionary Sister to be a “prayer partner” for each group who spends time at the Retreat Center.

groups arrive, the name of the “Sister Prayer Partner” and her photo are posted near their meeting space. When the group is welcomed they are told about their partner. Groups are delighted by the connection with the Sisters. Returning groups will often check the bulletin board for their Sister Prayer Partner even before she is “introduced” at the welcome.

In the past 14 years, the Missionary Sisters have been “missioned in prayer” to over 800 groups, their prayers can truly be felt by staff and guests alike.

Prayer Partners continue to be assigned for the groups that had planned to be at the center for retreat. Prayer Partners have been added for the staff, housekeeping and food service vendors waiting for on-site-ministry to resume.

When in contact with groups, Retreat Center staff assures the leaders they have a “Prayer Partner” supporting them through this uncertain time until they are able to return. The staff is grateful to the Sisters for their prayers and are united with Mother Cabrini in her belief that “prayer is powerful”.

The Impact of COVID 19 on the Faithful

March 18, 2020

On Monday, March 9, the Staff of the Shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Des Plaines, IL participated in a day long retreat at Cabrini Retreat Center. This included celebration of the Eucharist in the Retreat Center Chapel.

Later in the week, on Friday, March 13, Rev. Esequiel Sanchez, Rector of the Shrine, provided a reflection on the Suspension of Eucharist in the Archdiocese of Chicago:

Dear Friends,

The COVID virus is a deadly global virus. The impact is not only on our health, but is also on the lives of the poor, those losing their jobs, those in need of health care, and so many basic things needed to survive.

One area that it cannot impact us is in our conviction that we must care for one another. Even if it is in the simplicity of our prayers that we stand in solidarity.

This is the time in which we Catholics celebrate our Lenten season.

Lent is a time of austerity, of letting go, but never did we ever imagine one of the things we would have to let go of is the Eucharist itself

The inability to gather together for fear of hurting for another is a thing we must overcome. Let us take this Lenten season and this horrible experience that we are going through as a way of preparing for Easter, in which life comes out of death. We continue in our faith, we continue in our journey, we continue together.”

Rev. Esequiel Sanchez, Rector of the Shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe

Since 2013, the Shrine is the most visited shrine in the USA dedicated to Our Lady of Guadalupe, and the second most visited in the world after the Basilica of Guadalupe in Mexico. In June 1997, the site was granted being a place where pilgrims can fulfill their pledges or promises to Our Lady of Guadalupe as if they were being fulfilled at the Basilica of Mexico.

The full statement can be viewed in Spanish and English at https://www.solg.org/en/rectors-statement/

Closing Observance of National Migration Week

January 16, 2020

~ by Sr. Cathy Fedewa, CSFN

This past Saturday, I planned to attend the screening of One Border, One Body at a nearby parish. This was part of the “Film Festival” organized by the Chicago Archdiocesan program of Immigrant Parish Coordinators as part of the observance of National Migration Week. But, as elsewhere in the country that day, the weather did not cooperate and I could not get there. So I watched the film privately through the internet.

That occurrence actually became a powerful mindset for my participation in Sunday’s Interfaith Service, Becoming a Community of Hope, sponsored by the Sisters and Brothers of Immigrants. For four years now, it has become our closing celebration for National Migration Week.

With representation from the African American, Sikh, Muslim, Jewish, and Christian traditions, we heard from each representative the common themes that all of their writings and teachings express: hospitality, hope, welcoming the stranger, respect for differences. As would be expected in this kind of service, we were “preaching to the choir”, but it is good for the choir to be reminded together of the common concerns that so many of us carry. It was an affirmation of the need to persevere in our care for the immigrant, the refugee, the asylum seeker.

Two of the traditions specifically mentioned their understanding of hope, reflecting that, in those traditions, hope’s opposite – depression – is seen as an offense against God because it assumes a lack of trust in God’s providence.

This was something I think I needed to hear at this point in time amidst all the difficulties and crises going on around the world and in our midst. We closed in a Circle of Communities around the church singing Sr. Miriam Therese Winters’ lyrical adaptation of America the Beautiful.

I drove home that night buoyed by the mercy, goodness and power of our God who, in spite of the limitations of the human beings God has created, is still more powerful than all the negativity we manage to create.

HOPE STILL PREVAILS.

A New Home for Bethany

December 11, 2019

To the delight of all, Bethany House of Hospitality* has a new home! On December 7, vans, cars, trucks, residents, staff and volunteers were busily engaged…..all part of the challenge of packing, then unpacking belongings from two years and 50 miles away.

The new residence is owned by the Missionaries of St. Charles (Scalabrinians) and was originally used as their seminary. Their missionary focus for the last 25 years has been to be migrants with the migrants and to be in mission with people on the move along with a special priority for the poorest migrants. So, when the Board was searching for a new location closer to the city, the Scalabrinians saw that the mission and purpose of Bethany House was a perfect fit for a building they were no longer using.

Though it was a challenge to move in December, the weather was on their side as the young women and their volunteers, made the move and worked to get the house initially settled. They have much more yet to do while they continue to focus on finishing their semester’s studies.

While their former house in Bartlett was a serene and beautiful setting, it was far from the city of Chicago. The new house is in a better location for transportation to classes and activities. (Staff members are also grateful to have a much shorter commute.) It is hoped that there will also be many more opportunities to engage the nearby community in volunteer activities with the residents using the larger space available. The good news is that resident capacity can double, but that is on hold due to budget constraints. Development and fund raising efforts are just beginning.

*Bethany House of Hospitality, established in 2017, is sponsored by several local religious congregations, including the Missionary Sisters of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. It provides housing and support services to young immigrant women as they journey to independence.

Sharing the Beauty of Diverse Cultures and Traditions

December 4, 2019

Fully Alive is a weekly radio broadcast of the Archdiocese of Chicago, focusing on issues of human dignity and solidarity. On December 4, 2019, Sr. Cathy Fedewa, CSFN, of the Cabrini Retreat Center, joined staff from the Archdiocesan Office of Human Dignity and Solidarity in sharing two major events being sponsored by that office in December and in January, bringing awareness of the conflicts but also the beauty of the diversity of cultures shared in the city in its immigrant population.

Information and understanding of the events were shared with the audience regarding the Fourth Annual Posada to be held on December 13 on the streets of downtown Chicago.

The procession follows the same dynamics as a traditional posada, but instead of stopping at homes in their neighborhood, Joseph, Mary and their companions stop at various immigration-related locations in the city, such as the ICE Office and Immigration Court, and recall the difficulties immigrants encounter and the need for immigration reform. The procession ends at St. Peter’s Church in the heart of the city where all are finally welcomed and given hospitality….and a traditional celebration takes place.

The broadcast then continued with comments on National Migration Week being celebrated in the archdiocese, as it is around the country, on January 5, with a special liturgy in Holy Name Cathedral. A procession of nations in native dress (representing many of the diverse cultures in Chicago) begins the celebration. Diversity is also clear in the readings, intercessions and music, presented in varied languages. ~ submitted by Sr. Cathy Fedewa, CSFN, Cabrini Retreat Center