Bi-monthly e-newsletter giving witness to our Precious Blood Spirituality, grounded in Catholic Social Teaching and Gospel values
PBMR - Comfort Bears
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Holly O'Hara and Peaches at PBMR_slider
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Comfort Bears
Is there anything more comforting than hugging a loved one — or, if they are not there, a soft teddy bear? How well we know that as many of us have been isolated for months, many of our huggers need be masked and 6 feet apart from us! Not fun!!
Patti Kemper (Sister Ann Clark’s sister) felt there might be a need in Chicago for animal huggers, soft teddy bears, so off to Chicago she and Sister Ann went with 40+ bears to honor her friend Regina and to bring comfort to mothers who have lost loved ones to violence and/or to COVID-19.
Attached to each bear was a message:
“My name is Regina. I am named after a lady who died of breast cancer in 2001. One of her favorite hobbies was making teddy bears. She was a great listener and hugger! When you’re feeling overwhelmed with grief or just need someone to talk to, I’m here. Just give me a hug and I’ll listen to your troubles and worries and your good news too!” Read More
So Mother Brunner Family Center was soon filled with “Regina Comfort Bears.” The first person to get a bear was Fred. Fred spent over 20 years incarcerated and now is an amazing mentor for our youth at the Precious Blood Ministry of Reconciliation. He picked up one of the bears and just held it like a baby, seemingly feeling embraced by the whole world — a picture I wish I had captured.
Later that day, Freda, who lost her son to gun violence in July, came for a visit to Mother Brunner Family Center. After having hot chocolate and cookies, we offered her a Regina Bear. As the picture so vividly shows, she felt through Regina the embrace of God and of her deceased son. She wept and said, “…this bear will go with me everywhere.” Day after day, women came, followed by some of our youth, and within the week, all Patti’s “Regina Comfort Bears” were gone — but oh, the gift that these bears were in comforting over 40 suffering, lonely, grieving women, men and children.
Just yesterday, Sherrie (another mother who has lost a loved one) said, “…every night I sleep with Regina and I feel a peace I have longed for since my grandchild was murdered.”
The stories go on and “Regina Comfort Bears” have brought Christmas peace and joy to over 40 families in our Back of the Yards Community of South Side Chicago.
By Sister Donna Liette, C.PP.S.
Families Forward Coordinator, Precious Blood Ministry of Reconciliation
Above, Freda with her Comfort Bear. Right, PBMR intern Maggie Roth with Sister Carolyn Hoying.
“Now is the time to take it seriously”
St. Mary Medical Center in Apple Valley, California, was recently featured in The Washington Post as one hospital that is currently overwhelmed by the coronavirus pandemic. Precious Blood Sister Terry Maher serves as mission integration manager at St. Mary.
Sister Terry wrote about her experience as a chaplain amid the pandemic in a recent issue of Sharing & Caring, the Congregation’s quarterly newsletter (available on our website).
The Post article reports that the medical center’s Intensive Care Unit is at 300% capacity and patients are triaged in tents in the parking lot. “If you didn’t take [the pandemic] seriously before, now is the time to take it seriously,” a nurse says in a video that accompanies the article.
An article in the Daily Press(Victorville, California) also describes the current situation at St. Mary Medical Center and in the surrounding area. Health care workers at St. Mary began receiving the COVID-19 vaccine on Dec. 17.
By Mary Knapke
Communications Assistant
A Little Birdy Told Me I’m Racist
It was a Tuesday, and Peaches was in a mood. My roommate is bird-sitting a cockatoo, and today, Peaches was screeching at top capacity, throwing food in every direction, even attempting to chew through her cage to get out. I sat on my chair 10 feet away — afraid and silently judging her behavior. That’s when my roommate arrived. She saw the frustrated bird, gently opened the cage door, stuck her hand inside, and began to pet her head. Almost instantly, Peaches’ screeching faded to a purr, her head tilted to the side, and her feathers fluffed in warm gratitude for the act of compassion. Read More
While it may seem mundane, this moment between Peaches and Maggie reveals to me how dangerously susceptible my heart is to being dominated by fear. But we’re talking about a bird here. I would never do that to a human being … would I?
It was a Friday, and a young man at the Precious Blood Ministry of Reconciliation was asking everyone to give him a ride to go cash his check. He came barreling into the room and exploded toward me asking for a ride. I prejudged his frustration for violence and recoiled in fear. I told him that I couldn’t leave because my job for the next hour was to show hospitality to people who came in. Ironic, huh? Frustrated, he stomped away toward my roommate. With one final exhale of frustration, he asked if she would take him to the store. She received him calmly and told him she would take him as soon as she could find a car. Instantly, I saw the young man relax his shoulders, slow his breathing, lower his voice, and smile.
I stood up, walked over to the two of them and apologized. I offered to drive and asked if he would give me another chance. They both smiled, nodding.
When we see the world through a lens of fear, we tend to notice only things that confirm our fears, but when we look with eyes of compassion, we begin to see a bigger picture. We see not only see the frantic bird, but the cage in which she is held captive. We see not only the frustrated young man, but the pain that comes with unmet needs. We see not only the violence in the streets, but recognize how communities like Chicago’s Back of the Yards, where PBMR is located, are caged by structures that leave them perpetually under-resourced and overlooked.
What if (white) people recognized the cages that hold black and brown communities captive? What if we loosened our grip on power and control, and took a gamble on radical compassion? My guess is that when this finally happens, these streets will transform from places of violence to places of peace, filled with communities that have finally been heard, seen and appropriately cared for at long last.
By Holly O’Hara
Director of Communications and Marketing
Precious Blood Ministry of Reconciliation
This is an excerpt of an essay which previously appeared inThe New Wine Press. O’Hara resides with Precious Blood Sisters in ministry at the Precious Blood Ministry of Reconciliation.
Online events with Sister Mumbi
Precious Blood Sister Mumbi Kigutha led the Women Witnesses for Racial Justice Advent Prayer Service at futurechurch.org on Nov. 29. The prayer service honored the life of Mother Mary Lange, founder of the first religious community for Black Catholic women and the first school for Black Catholic children. The prayer service is available to view on YouTube.
Sister Mumbi has also joined recent episodes of “Tapping the Wine Cellar,” discussions hosted online by the Precious Blood Volunteers and Missionaries of the Precious Blood, Kansas City Province. On the Dec. 17 edition, Sister Mumbi participated in a discussion about the readings for the Fourth Sunday of Advent. She touched on the power of Mary’s “yes” and briefly described her relationship with Mary within her own faith journey as a convert to Catholicism.
Participants in the Dec. 17 episode also included Margaret Haik, director of communications for the Missionaries of the Precious Blood, Kansas City Province; Father Keith Branson, CPPS, chaplain at Avila University in Kansas City; Vicky Otto, director, Companion Movement at the Missionaries of the Precious Blood, Kansas City Province; and Tim Deveney, Director of Precious Blood Volunteers. Read More
“Tapping the Wine Cellar” is available online. Sister Mumbi also joined in discussions on Nov. 19 and Oct. 15. Visit the Precious Blood Volunteers page on Facebook to catch new episodes when they are broadcast live.
By Mary Knapke
Communications Assistant
Mother Mary Lange illustration by Chloe Becker, 2020