Sisters added ministry locally, collaborate internationally

By Tanya Connor
The Catholic Free Press

Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur tell how their focus and outreaches have changed over the years to respond to needs.
This was true when they established Notre Dame Long Term Care Center in Worcester, which celebrated its 30th anniversary last weekend. And it continues to be true as they move into more international collaboration.
St. Julie Billiart founded the Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur in Amiens, France, in 1804, but they later moved their motherhouse to Namur, Belgium. Now their international leadership is in Rome.
St. Julie envisioned an international congregation to teach the most abandoned, said Sister Eileen Burns, who lives in Lawrence and works in Everett. She is on the leadership team of the sisters’ East-West Province, one of the sisters’ three provinces in the United States. This province was formed in 2014 from four East Coast provinces and one on the West Coast, she said. Now, she said, the sisters are on five continents, doing other ministries too, including health care.
Sister Eileen is the president of the corporation for Notre Dame Health Care Center, which includes Notre Dame Long Term Care Center and Notre Dame du Lac, an assisted living residence, and the At Home Division for hospice and palliative care, all on Plantation Street in Worcester. Notre Dame Health Care Center is one of two entities the sisters still sponsor in the Worcester Diocese; the other is Notre Dame Academy in Worcester, she said.
At these and other institutions the sisters have reserved powers, including appointing boards of directors, to assure that the sisters’ mission will be maintained, she said. The governance of the institutions is then carried out by the boards.
The congregation originally focused primarily on teaching, and the East-West Province still has 11 educational institutions, including grammar schools and high schools and adult learning centers, Sister Eileen said. The sisters also have Emmanuel College in Boston, Trinity Washington University in Washington, D.C., and Notre Dame de Namur University in Belmont, California.
The sisters have also branched out into other areas of service, and into collaborating more closely with each other in their different United States provinces, and now internationally, Sister Eileen said.
“It’s much more a global world,” she explained. She said the number of sisters in the Northern Hemisphere is fewer than in the past, while the number of sisters in the Southern Hemisphere is greater than in the past.
“The future is in Africa,” said Sister Anne Stevenson, who works in Ipswich and is director of communications for the Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur internationally. In Africa, the sisters have greater numbers and younger sisters, and they are being trained well to carry on in the future, she said.
She said there are about 900 Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur in about 15 countries on five continents.
Sister Elaine Bain, a member of the leadership team of the East-West Province and clerk of the Notre Dame Health Care Center corporation, who lives in Windsor Locks, Connecticut, said the province has about 323 sisters, many of whom no longer have paying jobs. But many volunteer after they retire from active ministry, she said.
Worldwide there are about 70 novices and junior professed who have not yet taken final vows, Sister Elaine said.
“There is interest” in the congregation, she said. Asked what draws prospective sisters she said, “Probably our charism, our mission and our internationality. … Our charism is to pass on the goodness of God. … We do it in a variety of ways now.”
The sisters’ ministries changed some after the Second Vatican Council, Sister Elaine said. People’s needs changed and the sisters also needed to find ministries that would support them financially.
The sisters’ convent on Plantation Street had historically housed retired sisters and those needing assisted living, but some needed more nursing care, as did people in the broader community, Sister Elaine said.
Sister Eileen provided a bit of history.
In 1900 the congregation purchased the Plantation Street property where Notre Dame Health Care is located, providing a place for sick sisters to recuperate. In the 1960s an infirmary with round-the-clock nursing care was added, Sister Eileen said.
“As more of our sisters began to age, we began to look at what would be our needs,” she said. “As medical care was advancing, we wanted to create a long-term care center, fully equipped and licensed in a different way” than the infirmary was. “We determined that we would also open it to the general public, because there was a need in the Worcester area.” By taking other patients in addition to sisters, they could build a bigger building, helping the community and helping fund the sisters’ care, she said. She said it has been very successful.
After that, they renovated and rebuilt the convent and infirmary to make it an assisted living facility.