Monthly e-newsletter giving witness to our Precious Blood Spirituality, grounded in Catholic Social Teaching and Gospel values
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human trafficking vigil
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homicide vigil_cropped_web
Spring break mission experience
Amidst all of the divisive rhetoric about young people and older people not being able to connect, it was a tremendous blessing to watch a group of nine Mount St. Joseph University (MSJ) students seek out opportunities to engage with our Sisters while they stayed at Salem Heights, our central house in Dayton, Ohio. Our Sisters were so gracious and hospitable as they shared meals, morning prayer and evening reflection with the students. Read More
In early March, the students devoted part of their spring break to tornado recovery for Five Rivers MetroParks, a public park system serving the greater Dayton area. It was a humbling and inspiring experience for the students and for me. The students, especially those who are from Dayton, remembered the night of May 27, 2019, when 15 tornadoes touched down throughout the Miami Valley. However, many of the students had not seen the devastation and destruction as closely as we experienced it driving from our lodging at Salem Heights to Wegerzyn Gardens MetroPark each day. It really made a profound impact on the group to see the extent of the damage, even months after the tornadoes touched down. What was particularly inspiring for all of us was being able to give back to the Dayton community, for some of us our own community.
Our leadership team took time to meet with the students at Young’s Jersey Dairy, a popular local ice cream shop and dairy farm. Our Council’s kindness was a blessing for the students as they had just learned via email that the University campus would be closed, sports competitions canceled, and all classes delivered online, due to the spread of COVID-19, or the coronavirus. As I sat listening to our leadership team engage with the students, I kept thinking about them being a “life-giving presence in our fractured world,” as our Congregation’s mission statement calls us to be. Most of the time, engaging in good work, such as building relationships and rebuilding communities, is done quietly. However, the impact does not go unnoticed as it inspires all involved to experience making a difference, for both the givers and the receivers. While MSJ students made a difference at Wegerzyn Gardens, our Sisters, in turn, made a difference — whether at Salem Heights or at Young’s Dairy — in the lives of those students. And I am forever grateful for both.
By Sister Karen Elliott, C.PP.S.
Director of Mission Integration
Mount St. Joseph University
Precious Blood brings life to the world
It is a practice in many places around the world to publicly walk the stations of the cross on Good Friday not only to commemorate the sacrifice of our Lord, but to call attention and respond to our modern-day injustices.
The Sisters of the Precious Blood have been involved for many years in Good Friday walks for peace and justice in Dayton and in other places where they minister. Read More
They have participated as walkers, as readers and writers of prayer for the stations and as organizers. Sister Alice Schoettelkotte, in particular, has served on the interfaith organizing committee for Dayton’s Good Friday walk for 24 years. She retired from the committee this year.
As a Sister of the Precious Blood, it’s been important to Sister Alice to contribute to the walk for peace and justice, an event that draws over 100 people each year. “Precious Blood is entwined with Jesus’ journey to Calvary,” said Sister Alice. She believes that we are all called to that journey, though not in the same way; we each have different crosses to carry.
What does Jesus’ sacrifice mean for us today? Sister Alice described two important functions of blood in living creatures. Blood brings life to the body and it carries away what is no longer needed. Jesus’ shedding of his blood was a life-giving action. “I have to die to myself in order to bring life to our world,” said Sister Alice. “The Precious Blood has to be shed by me in some way today.”
Sister Alice understands the shedding of the blood to mean giving totally of herself to others, just as Jesus did. She does this in her volunteer ministry at the Maria Joseph Nursing and Rehabilitation Center in Dayton, a place where she worked in various capacities for 37 years until her retirement in 2018. Whenever a resident stops her in the hall these days or needs to talk, Sister Alice takes time for them, even though other tasks may be on her agenda.
We are grateful to Sister Alice for her willingness to emulate Jesus in her lifelong ministries, including her service for the Good Friday walk for peace and justice. According to Sister Alice, “Precious Blood is really about following the path of Jesus, and it is lifegiving.”
By Colleen Kammer
I am soap. I clean. I bubble. I lie in wait in hotel rooms to deliver help to trafficking victims.
That help comes in the form of an 800 hotline number, displayed on a label on the soap wrapper, from the S.O.A.P. organization. It provides an opportunity for women and men to escape sex trafficking. It’s a connection to resource centers and sheriffs’ offices.
Each year, the Sisters of the Precious Blood join organizations in Dayton, Ohio, during the NCAA First Four basketball tournament for a special purpose. Read More
Even though the games were cancelled this year due to the spread of COVID-19, traffickers continued the exploitation of minors in our city. On March 10, 20 Sisters labelled hundreds of bars of soap for hotel rooms; their prayers for safety went with the soap.
On March 16, Sisters gathered again to continue prayer with a service in our chapel in Dayton. We shared readings of desperation, poverty and courage by targeted victims who escaped the evils of sex and labor trafficking. We gave God thanks for their successes.
We honored and asked St. Josephine Bakhita, a victim of trafficking in the late 19th century, to help us understand and appreciate our “obligation of justice.” For the World Day of Prayer, Reflection and Action Against Human Trafficking in 2018, Pope Francis also wrote about efforts for “cutting off the demand in order to dry out the market.”
We considered and then imagined the youth in our city who needed help and courage to change their situation; we prayed they’d find escape and comfort. We begged God to free our eyes, open our ears, hold our hands ready, to give dignity and freedom from abuse.
We connected in spirit once again, with the elderly woman and her friends who started our Congregation in 1834. Maria Anna Brunner and her Sisters prayed many hours; they gave away bread in their neighborhood to those in need. Our mission today reflects the same as we endeavor to meet the needs of our times in this “fractured world.”
By Sister Thelma Wurzelbacher
Retired, Columbus State Community College
Volunteering – CPPS Style
School bells ringing, reports due, meetings and more meetings, punching time clocks, evaluations, contracts — part of my life for nearly 50 years. These are the years of being an elementary school teacher, then principal, facilities administrator, nurse aide and, finally, chaplain.
Now, happily, I am a volunteer! Following my years of chaplaincy, I volunteered as a Eucharistic Minister on Thursdays at the local hospital. Read More
I experienced the patients’ welcome and gratitude in their eyes and smiles, or when one would say, “You made my day.” What a privilege it was for me to bring the Eucharistic Body and Blood of Jesus to the sick and suffering and witness such affirmations of faith.
About three years after Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans, I volunteered in a center there that prepared and served free lunch to homeless people. Twice a week I volunteered at a different center where we tutored adults to help each one earn their GED (high school equivalent diploma). Some of these people shared their experiences during and after the hurricane as it wreaked its havoc on the city and their lives.
Right here in Dayton, Ohio, two of our Sisters began an adult literacy center some years ago. Fresh back from New Orleans, I was one of the first volunteer tutors in the Brunner Literacy Center on Salem Avenue. After some years, the Brunner Literacy Center was asked to administer a tutoring program at the Day Reporting Center. Here the staff attempts to help young people transitioning from incarceration. I am one of the several older tutors of the Brunner Literacy Center who come to this site. We are so happy to know our joint efforts have helped over 150 young people earn their GED during the time we have been there. With their newfound knowledge and self-confidence these young people look forward to improving their lives and their families’ lives in the community.
The Sisters of the Precious Blood were founded as a community dedicated to the Blood of Christ and rooted in the Eucharist as the source and summit of our religious life. Like our foundress, Maria Anna Brunner, we continue to read the signs of the times and minister to our communities wherever and however we are needed. Freed from the responsibilities of full-time employment, I have found joy and fulfillment in being a volunteer touching and ministering to people wherever I encounter them.
By Sister Anna Maria Sanders, C.PP.S.
Volunteer tutor, Brunner Literacy Center
Homicide vigil prayer service
In March 2006, the Sisters of the Precious Blood reinitiated prayer vigils at the sites of homicides in Dayton, Ohio. As most homicides were occurring in specific neighborhoods, sites were expanded to include Trotwood and nearby Harrison and Jefferson townships. Since 2006, the number of vigils has exceeded 500. Ages of victims range from 2 months to 93 years. While the Sisters continue to coordinate the vigils, prayer leadership is provided by members of churches such as Baptist, Church of the Brethren, Presbyterian and other denominations. Read More
Each March, an annual memorial prayer service is held at Salem Heights to recall the past year’s victims, their families, the perpetrators and law enforcement officers. This year’s service was held on March 7, recalling 49 victims. The ecumenical service included a reading of the victims’ names, a Scriptural reflection from a pastor who herself lost a son to gun violence, and an anointing to strengthen vigil members in their ongoing commitment to this good work.
Our Congregation’s mission statement calls us to be a “life-giving, reconciling presence in our fractured world.” The vigils are a means of witnessing publicly to the preciousness of all life since Jesus shed his blood for all. We go to sites of fractured relationships, praying in and for the healing of persons affected by the violence and for neighborhoods in which the violence has occurred. May not one drop of Christ’s Precious Blood be shed in vain.
By Sister Jeanette Buehler, C.PP.S.
Volunteer coordinator, Community Homicide Prayer Vigil group