Sister Anne blazes trail into Church's future

Leading a parish is a tough job. First, there are the meetings: deanery, parish council, finance committee, vocations, Renew 2000.

Then there are the ecumenical activities, sacramental preparation, counseling troubled parishioners and keeping up with the activities of a host of parish ministries and organizations.

And of course, Sister Anne Sheridan, CSJ, always starts her day with a liturgy.

In the vanguard

Since September, Sister Anne has served as parish life director at St. Patrick's Church in Cambridge. Obviously, she doesn't celebrate Mass each morning, but she does lead the daily liturgical services allowed by the Church in the absence of a priest. And in just about every other way, she is essentially the pastor of the 400-family parish.

"The pastor has many hats, and I have all of those hats," from working at the church's recent tag sale to coordinating Mass schedules with neighboring parishes, she explained.

One of only four women religious in the Diocese serving as parish life directors, Sister Anne describes her job as "basically being there for people of the parish, helping them be what the Church needs to be today."

Path to position

It's something the parish life director has been working toward for a very long time. An Albany native and graduate of The College of Saint Rose with master's degrees in mathematics and pastoral counseling, Sister Anne has served in the Albany and Syracuse Dioceses and in Massachusetts as a high-school teacher, retreat director, and regional superior, provincial councilor and personnel director for her order.

Before coming to St. Patrick's, she taught math for a year at Catholic Central High School in Troy.

"I went back [to teaching] because there wasn't something available in parish work," she admitted, calling the position of parish life director "something I would have liked to do a long time ago, but there were not a lot of opportunities for that."

Skills at work

Her new job utilizes her experience in administration, spiritual direction, retreat work and pastoral counseling all at once.

"I was prepared for things dealing with faith development, with what people go through in terms of living their faith and responding to what God is asking of them," Sister Anne said. "Most difficult for me is [working with] the younger religious education [students]. I've never done that."

Most of her days start at 7 a.m. and end around midnight. All of the work in the parish is done by volunteers, so she is kept busy sharing in their activities. St. Patrick's has active youth and prayer groups, and chapters of the Knights of Columbus, Catholic Daughters of the Americas and Legion of Mary.

Sister Anne is also a member of the local United Church Council, an ecumenical group that plans such events as Thanksgiving and Advent services, and a Christmas "Bethlehem Walk" through town.

Fitting in

Even though most parishioners have welcomed her with open arms, Sister Anne said she must also be understanding of those who would rather have a full-time priest in the parish. (Revs. Liam Condon of Holy Cross parish in Salem and Thomas Konopka of St. Joseph's in Greenwich serve as sacramental ministers for St. Patrick's.)

In counseling parishioners, she said, "women talk more freely to women sometimes, and there's things they need to talk about in their lives. I've already talked to a couple of women here, and I think it was good. But one [disadvantage] is the fact that you're not a priest. They may say, `I need a priest.'"

Sister Anne has learned to take such criticism lightly. She stated that ordination is not necessary to her work, but joked that a priest might have one advantage over her: Men usually know more about repair work and maintenance needs for parish buildings than women!

Women's role?

One thing Sister Anne's new job has taught her is that men and women have much to teach each other. "There's a faith dimension women can bring....[But] I don't want it to be `only a woman does this,' because a man can learn the gifts of women and a woman can learn the gifts of a man."

She is looking forward to working with the two priests assigned to help out at the parish "to do some talking and planning together, and connecting within our parishes."

Eventually, the parish life director also hopes to sit down with her peers in the Diocese: Sister Mary Kenan McGowan, RSM, parish life director at St. John Francis Regis parish in Grafton; Sister Mary Lou Liptak, RSM, who serves St. Lucy's in Altamont; and Sister Joan Curley, CSJ, of St. Joseph's, Schoharie.

"The Church wouldn't be where it is today without women," Sister Anne commented. "Women may be carrying a lot of the nitty-gritty things that are going on. Being here as a parish life director is a recognition to women -- women can do this." [[In-content Ad]]