( Thirteen members of the West Midwest Community of the Sisters of Mercy of the Americas are celebrating jubilees of religious life during 2008. The jubilarians are from what was formerly the Burlingame Regional Community in California and Arizona. )
60 YEARS
Sister M. Joanne De Vincenti entered the Sisters of Mercy in Burlingame after her training at St. Joseph's School of Nursing in Phoenix, Ariz., professing her vows in 1948.She holds a graduate degree from St. Louis University in healthcare administration. Sister De Vincenti is a former administrator of St. Mary's Medical Center and serves there today as coordinator of guest relations.
Sister Rosemary Sullivan entered the Sisters of Mercy after graduating from St. Peter's Academy in San Francisco, professing vows in 1948. She holds a doctoral degree in microbiology from the University of Notre Dame. Sister Sullivan is a former superior general of her congregation's Burlingame Community and for the last 15 years has served at their Mercy High School there.
50 YEARS ( profession Jan. 25, 1958 )
Sister Kathleen Marie Kinney first met the Sisters of Mercy when she was a student at Bishop Conaty High School in Los Angeles. She returned to Conaty in 1984 as a religion teacher following more than 25 years at schools throughout the West. It is her intent to teach young women to think, pray and walk with justice.
Sister M. Cecile Ley showed tremendous musical talent as a young woman in San Diego, which she developed in the Mercy community, and later shared as part of the Mercy School of Music in Burlingame. She also taught in elementary schools for 25 years and was in parish ministry for four years. Presently she is using music therapy with behavioral health patients at Scripps Mercy Hospital and Scripps Mercy Chula Vista.
Sister Jane Meuse has taught for 49 years at schools including Our Lady of Angels in Burlingame and currently St. Anne Elementary School in San Francisco. Perhaps the insight that her students are also her teachers has kept alive her passion, creativity, and kind but firm discipline. She is as fresh and current today in her approach to teaching as she was nearly 50 years ago.
Sister M. Rachel Torrez is a nurse with degrees from St. Joseph's Hospital in Phoenix and Arizona State University and a record of substantial posts in the field including director of nursing at Sonoma Valley Hospital. Since 1997 she has served with the Arizona State Board of Nursing as a nurse practice consultant.
Sister Patricia Williams ( formerly Sister Raphael Marie ) spent a year after her graduation from Bishop Conaty High School in the business world but soon felt the call of religious vocation. After her profession, Sister spent 17 years teaching at St. Anthony and Our Lady of Guadalupe schools and briefly at St. Gabriel and Holy Name. She has also served in parish work at St. Peter Parish in the Mission District. Sister Williams returned to Burlingame in 1989, taking on a variety of ministries, especially acupressure, which she hopes to continue into her retirement years.
Sister JoCeal Young has taught and served as principal at schools throughout California and is a former associate superintendent of schools for the Diocese of San Jose. She has also served in health ministry. One of her most rewarding experiences continues to be her work with a volunteer medical group that travels to various parts of central Mexico to perform free surgeries for children with cleft lips, cleft palates and crossed eyes.
50 YEARS from entrance
Sister Judith Carle was a Mercy woman from the beginning, born in San Francisco's St. Mary's Hospital and educated by the Sisters of Mercy at Holy Name of Jesus Elementary School in the Sunset District and then Mercy High School. She is a former regional community president and vice president with long service at both her alma mater - where she teaches today - and Mercy High School in Burlingame.
Sister Kathleen Connolly comes from a family proud of its many Sisters and priests, some who have served as missionaries in Africa. Father Ben Cummins and retired Oakland Bishop John Cummins are her cousins. She attended Mercy High School, Burlingame, and was attracted by the Sisters' love of community there, later teaching for 22 years, mostly seventh and eighth grades, in San Francisco, Los Angeles and Bakersfield. She then moved to Pocahontas, Va., as part of the Mercy Federation's New Foundation's project. She loved working with the people of Appalachia. Currently she is as a social worker with Catholic Charities Refugee Fostercare Program in San Jose. Most of the children in her caseload are from refugee camps in Africa.
Sister Mary Brian Kelber has served as a nurse and academic since her first days as a student at the University of San Francisco's School of Nursing. She is a former head nurse in pediatrics at St. Mary's Hospital and supervisor at St. Joseph's Hospital in Phoenix and a member of the USF nursing faculty since 1976. She is well known for Fully Alive, a health program for women emphasizing exercise and healthy attitudes. For her jubilee, Sister Kelber wrote: "Those of us in nursing and nursing education share a common ministry with one another on behalf of the sick we care for and on behalf of our entire world. Ever giving to another in healing or walking in company with a dying person are ways of sharing Christ's life and love with those whose lives we touch."
Sister M. Lorita Moffatt knew as early as fourth grade at St. Gabriel Elementary School in San Francisco that she would become a Sister of Mercy. So it was no surprise when she entered the community following her graduation from Mercy High School, San Francisco, in 1958. She is a former member of the faculty at her high school alma mater and a founder of the Sisters' House of Prayer in Chatsworth. Since 1992, she has served on the program staff at Mercy Center in Burlingame giving spiritual direction, retreats and spiritual formation.
Sister Joyce Turnbull is a former member of the nursing faculty at the University of San Francisco and San Jose State University and ministered for 15 years in home health and hospice. Sister Turnbull resumed her ministry in nursing education when she began a nursing education program in the Mission District of San Francisco. She is now teaching nursing at the City College of San Francisco.
