Schenectady, second time around, offers new challenges via cluster

It hasn't taken long for Sister Joan Vlaun, OP, to get comfortable in her new surroundings at St. John the Evangelist Church in Schenectady. That's because the parish isn't exactly new to her.

She was involved in various ministries at St. John's while serving as full-time Catholic chaplain at Union College across the street from 1983 to 1991.

Sister Joan returned to the neighborhood in recent months as pastoral associate for faith formation at St. John's and its cluster parishes, St. Mary's and Holy Cross, and she's ready to assume the responsibilities of ministry among three parishes with Rev. John Provost, pastor.

"It's been an adjustment now that it's a cluster, but it says something good about Father Provost's vision of Church, and that's one of the reasons I wanted to come back," Sister Joan said.

Parish-college links

While at Union, Sister Joan had a good working relationship with the college's president, who was a Presbyterian minister, and "we did everything to create a better rapport with St. John's," she said. "We built a whole new model of campus ministry, and Union College knew I wasn't there to proselytize."

Catholic students and some from other faiths participated in different ministries at St. John's and began attending the 7:30 p.m. Sunday Mass, which still remains a popular liturgy for the college's population.

Sister Joan not only ministered to the Union's students; she also served on the St. John's liturgy committee, coordinated Bible study, and participated in other spiritual and service-oriented work at the parish.

"The clergy in the area were wonderful to me, and my relationships within the Diocese have been extremely positive and affirming," she said. She also fit in well with Union's faculty because she has a doctoral degree in history.

Hiatus

During her years at Union, Sister Joan lived in Schenectady with her sister, Gerri Borne, pastoral care director at St. John's.

Her work in campus ministry was rewarding, but Sister Joan felt called to parish ministry, and she left Union in 1991 to become pastoral associate for faith formation at St. Mary's Church in Coxsackie.

Two years later, she went to St. Patrick's Church in Ravena, where she stayed until she returned to Schenectady in the summer.

As pastoral associate for faith formation, Sister Joan oversees the Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults and handles new registrations at parishes in the cluster. She has also conducted enrichment seminars for lectors and Eucharistic ministers.

Cluster effort

Now that her ministry involves not one parish but three, Sister Joan is "trying to be sensitive to the fact that we are a cluster. I've been happiest and most fulfilled working in small places, but I'm still working with groups small enough that I haven't been overwhelmed."

She has maintained relationships with people connected to Union, and being there for so many years makes her a good resource person for the cluster. St. John's staff members also have learned about "lock-ins," 24-hour fasts and other events geared toward teens that Sister Joan coordinated in other parishes before returning to the cluster.

Her home in the Stockade section of Schenectady is known as the Holy Cross Convent, named in honor of the Congregation of the Holy Cross of the Sisters of St. Dominic to which she belongs. The house is big enough to host meetings for the 15 members of her Renew 2000 group, comprised of some folks she knew from her days previously at St. John's.

"It's great being back here in the cluster because I know so many people," she said.