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JUBILARIAN

60 years a sister - and no plans to retire

It's taking three parties this fall to adequately celebrate six decades of religious life for Sister Joan Vlaun, OP:

• a recent Mass at her parish followed by a reception;

• a celebration later in the month with her religious community, the Sisters of St. Dominic of Amityville; and

• a family celebration in October.

"I've got family coming from all over," said the associate for faith formation at St. John the Evangelist parish in Schenectady. "It's exciting."

A native of Brooklyn, Sister Joan and her family later moved to Queens. While attending a diocesan high school, she encountered the Sisters of St. Dominic when she was invited to participate in a bus tour of five different religious communities.

"My mother wouldn't let me go alone, so my older sister had to go with me," Sister Joan recalled. "My sister still remembers the look on my face when I saw the chapel."

Despite Sister Joan's desire to enter religious life, she faced challenges: "My father was not Catholic at the time and tried to talk me out of it," she explained.

Backed by mom
Sister Joan did have her mother's support. 

"I was born on an Easter Sunday. My mother said, 'God gave you to us on His day; you go, and I will take care of your father.'"

After failing at his efforts to deter Sister Joan, her father finally went to see the parish priest, hoping that he would talk her out of entering the convent.

"He came back with the Catechism," said Sister Joan. "My father made his First Communion before I entered."

Her father's conversion to Catholicism is one of the reasons Sister Joan has enjoyed ministering in the Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults program for those joining the Church. "My own father converted," she noted, "so RCIA is dear to me."

For the past 27 years, Sister Joan has been "on loan" to the Albany Diocese. She first came to the diocese to serve as Catholic campus minister at Union College in Schenectady; she has also ministered at St. Mary's parish in Coxsackie, St. Patrick's in Ravena and, for the past 11 years, St. John the Evangelist in Schenectady.

St. John connection
It was during her time at Union College that Sister Joan became involved with her current parish. The church is across the street from the college and became the location of a Sunday evening Mass for college students. 

The sister also began a folk group of students that served the parish and a Bible study group that included both parishioners and students.

Today, Sister Joan continues to work in the parish's RCIA program and facilitates adult Bible study groups. "As long as I can keep going, I have no thoughts of retiring," she declared.

While much has changed over the past 60 years, Sister Joan said the most memorable for her are the changes that occurred in the Church and in religious life after the Second Vatican Council in the 1960s.

Changes
When Sister Joan entered the convent, for example, she wore the traditional habit of the Dominicans. It was the dress of the 13th century. Through the changes of the Second Vatican Council, her religious order began to wear contemporary clothing and expanded its ministries.

"We wanted to transform religious life," she said.

Sister Joan is still disappointed that more people didn't enter religious life after the Second Vatican Council: "There really should be more young people. It's hard to understand. 

"It's so much easier than when I entered. It is so easy to be yourself, to be a strong woman."

(09/17/09) [[In-content Ad]]

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