Sr. Marianne Longo: Religious life often started because a person, often sometimes a priest or a layman, but often a woman who saw particular needs and decided they had to do something.

Narrator: They were women of courage, independence and integrity with an inner spirit that guided them forward.

No matter how difficult the obstacles, they possessed a desire to lead a life devoted to spiritual work.

Eventually, these women were called from Europe and other parts of the world to serve in the United States at the request of the community and Narrator: through the authority of the Bishop.

These women religious came to northwest Ohio and devoted their lives to helping people in need.

Their presence in the community marked the beginning of orphanages, schools, colleges, hospitals, nursing homes, shelters and more.

Narrator: Over the past century, they brought a dedicated passion to this community, both remarkable and inspiring a passion of hearts, a fire.

(Music) As early as the sixth century, religious orders were organized in Europe by people who wanted to achieve a common purpose and did so by vowing to dedicate themselves to that mission and a communal life.

Sr. Maryann Bremke: Orders sprang up around.

Major Saints, Saint Francis, Saint Dominic, Saint Augustine.

Narrator: The teachings of each saint were written as rules and communities of faith were developed around those rules.

Most women religious communities were established by a founder or founders who addressed a specific need in the community at that moment in time.

Narrator: Their vows and rules were most often based on a set of saintly rules that were followed by a larger religious order.

These groups of sisters are referred to as congregations.

The Council of Trent in 45 formally introduced the habit to make uniform dress a part of religious life adherents symbolized fidelity to Christ and religious profession, as well Narrator: as distinguished different religious congregations from one another.

It wasn't until 1965, after Vatican two that each congregation was told to recognize the signs at the time and review their original charism and apply those beliefs to modern day.

Sr. Karen Elliot: We responded to that call of Vatican two and went back to the dress of the women of our station of life, which is why I'm dressed like a college professor because that's my station in life.

That's my ministry.

Narrator: Women Blessing Women is just one example of how religious congregations are currently working together to serve our community.

Kay Shrewsbery: This program, Women Blessing Women, was started about 1998 by a consortium of all of the the religious orders of Northwest Ohio.

They got together and started a program that reaches out to women who dropped out of school.

It doesn't matter why the program now runs on its own.

Kay Shrewsbery: It is an organization of its own.

So although they're still connected to it, their major impetus was getting it started in the first place.

Narrator: Many people look at religious life and sisters as mysterious.

It can be difficult to understand why someone would devote her entire life to religious service.

Sr. Maryann Bremke: A sister is one who does apostolic work, in other words, like teaching or nursing or social work or work that's out among the people.

Being a sister is really just a further step in your baptismal commitment, and you're baptized into this community of faith as Catholic.

And therefore, then what are you going to do with that?

Our sisters are in just about every walk of life as their late counterparts are.

And so they have the option for both.

But they make a choice to take vows to be faithful to those vows and and then to do the work that they feel they're calling to.

Sr. Mary Delores Gatliff: All religious communities take the virus of poverty, chastity and obedience.

And in those vows were imitating Christ, who who was also chaste, poor and obedient.

And chastity is my way of loving.

Rather than limiting myself to one human person, I'm free to love all people as Jesus would love them.

And poverty like Jesus, I want to live a simple lifestyle, mindful that many in our world have very not all they need, really, and the vow of obedience.

The route of obedience means to listen, and that is what we do in our vow of obedience.

We were trying always to listen to what God is calling us to do.

Sr. Rita Weinken: I realize that the sisters made a difference in people's lives, and that's really what I wanted to do was to make a difference in someone's life, and I felt I could do that best by being a sister of Saint Francis.

Sr. Karen Elliot: I was interested in religious life and began to look at different communities, and with that idea, I thought the day will come.

When I can't be a nurse, I'll be old or I'll be sick.

The day will come when I can't be a teacher, but there will never be a day.

No matter how old or how sick I am, then I'm not able to pray, and then I'm not able to help people with forgiveness and reconciliation.

Sr. Mary Delores Gatliff: Well, when I was younger, I think I went back and forth between Chalabi, a sister, or shall I be married because I had my parents were very loving parents, and so I had great role models there.

And I always loved kids.

And so sometimes I imagined myself married with a lot of children.

But God provided many more children for me in a different way, through my teaching and through my vocation ministry.

Sr. Marilyn Marie Ellerbrock: People don't understand religious life.

It's not that they're negative or against it.

They just don't know about it.

Sr. Anne Mary Molyet: Many of them still have the image of.

You know, sister act, you know, it's it's you know, it's prior to pre-Vatican two, and those images are being passed down from oftentimes grandparents.

Sr. Mary Delores Gatliff: Some people, maybe they're not interested in religious life, but they have a misconception that sisters pray all day and our life is very serious.

We work all the time.

But by spending time with us, people see that we're normal people.

We we have fun.

We have celebrations.

We do work hard, but we're supporting one another in our ministry.

Sr. Marilyn Marie Ellerbrock: While I've changed, ministries would have never dreamt of doing some of the things I've done the community because of its calling me to do that has just expanded my world wonderfully.

While some people think religious life is very confining and boring, I have yet to discover that.

Sr. Anne Mary Molyet: They don't know that we have changed and that we are living life in a new way, in a vibrant way, in a joyful way.

Sr. Marilyn Keller: I think where we are now, there is much more of the reality of who we are as religious and what we are about.

Sr. Marilyn Marie Ellerbrock: So I have I've had the great privilege of educating people, which is always fun.

It's great to go out not only with young people, with adults in the diocese as well and answer their questions and kind of open their whole view of what religious life and church ministry is about.

Narrator: Sisters and religious congregations that follow the saintly examples passed down from their founders or founder are drawn to vocations and missions that express those virtues within each of the missions, the ministries are created and the sisters are asked to serve those in need.

Sr. Maryann Bremke: Well, religious are grouped.

According to their charism and their founder.

Sr. Anne Mary Molyet: Yes, each one of us has a different spirit.

We have a different charism.

And by charism, I mean it, it is a gift that is given by God, which highlights a certain aspect of the gospel.

Sr. Constance Marie Suchala: And when one enters a religious order, one chooses to assume the work of that particular religious community.

And our province is our primary educators.

The sisters are primarily educators.

So I knew coming in that I would likely be a teacher somewhere.

Sr. Karen Elliot: When our community asks us to be in ministry.

They want us to be prepared.

They want us to be well-trained.

They don't want us just there with good intentions.

We have to have the training and the background to do the ministry that were invited to participate in.

Sr. Marilyn Marie Ellerbrock: What is it that the church really needs right now?

What is it that God wants the church to be and do in our current world?

And then how can we fit into that?

Where where are the holes?

Because often women religious have filled those holes.

We serve the people that nobody else wants to serve.

We go to the places where nobody else really wants to be.

Narrator: Over the past few decades, our societal needs have changed dramatically.

And sisters from every congregation have answered the call to serve and minister in unique and innovative ways.

Sr. Rosine Sobczak: In our leaflet here, we provide nature education in an interdisciplinary fashion.

We do some math, some science, some social studies, some English, some literature, plus the science.

We bring children here from ages four through eighth grade during academic year.

The different regions of the world are right here, either outside or inside, that we can show the children teach them about what goes on there.

Sr. Ruth Marie Kachelek: one of the gifts, I guess that I had was to do a painting egg tempera painting.

After having taken a class at Siena Heights University one summer.

And so then after that I did the Sun Damiano Cross that hangs up in the chapel.

And if you remember on the outer walls of the Franciscan Center, there are huge mosaics that were done right here on this campus in simple little Albano studio, and they are on the outside of the buildings, rather on the inside, so that the whole world can see them.

Sr. Anne Marie McMannus: And Angelo always told us to go with the times, and this is the time of day care.

Believe it or not, she told us to move on now.

I never thought that I'd be in a daycare.

I never thought and.

But I'm really happy that I am.

And it does fit in, and as the times go on, who knows what the next ten years will be?

Sr. Margo Young: Well, I am a physician and therefore I work in a health project and one of the other sisters is with the education project.

Together, we try to be present to the people in the ways they most need.

Access to health care is minimal there and especially in our area, so we offer a basic service.

Sr. Marianne Longo: At least from my perspective, and this is my ministry right now.

We call it spiritual direction, retreat work.

But what we do is try to be with someone as they try to find their way and the retreat center, the spirituality centers providing that space.

So we have reiki, which is healing touch.

We have a massage.

We had availability of reflexology at that time, working with the feet.

And then we also have the walk walking.

We have an exercise room.

We have bicycles, that kind of thing.

And then we also want them then to connect them to.

Art, music and then the reading of the traditions that we have of saints and contemporary men and women who have given us examples and shown us how to live life.

Martin Distel: So my ministry really I didn't I didn't go out and look for it.

It came to me about nine years ago.

one of the sisters ask if I could help an older lady in her home.

She was homebound and she was in poor health.

So I, you know, I guess I can't.

At that time, I was a nurse aide and I was also in charge of maintenance at the St Ursula Academy Convent.

So I had enough work to do, but I thought, well, one person, I couldn't do that well.

Then she told somebody else and I got a second job and then I got a third job, and now I'm up to 14.

I do whatever they want me to do.

If it's to make a bed, to clean, to shop, to visit whatever they want me to do.

Narrator: With the inequality and violence in the United States and around the world.

The message of peace and the fight for human dignity continues to be a significant ministry.

Sr. Ellen Lamberjack: We have taken stances, and each year for many years, we have turned into a bus to go to Fort Benning and have our vigil as a result of the violence in those countries.

Are more and more people trying to flee that and come to our country.

Are starting an office in Archbold called Project Hope.

It's in the Zion Mennonite Church as a very collaborative ministry with sister from another congregation and other religious denominations working to educate the people.

That laws are here in the United States, but their rights and responsibilities are, but also helping them to become legal, get their legal documents to be here in the states.

Sr. Rita Weinken: We decided that what we needed to do was really have an Earth literacy office.

So what we do is we have school programs, school field trips.

We know that hands on learning is is one of the best ways for for children and adults, for anyone to to learn about their natural world and to help men, how to become responsible and to care for it.

What is really at the heart of what we do and teach at the Franciscan Nurse Literacy Center is teaching about the relationship between the natural world and the human.

But we've started another area that that I'm personally excited about with Franciscan Earth Literacy Center, and that is our Seeds of Hope Farm.

It's an all natural chemical free farm in which we.

We sell to the public and farming and gardening and showing people how to raise their own food using chemical free methods is is a wonderful woman and in this part of.

The Toledo dioceses, you were out in a rural country, and I believe we have something that we can say and share to people and learn together.

Sr. Rose Helene Wildenhaus: You know, I find myself doing something I never dreamed I would do, and that's working in the field of housing, construction and rehab.

We've done over $200 million worth of construction work.

Since 1989, you know, I had no idea that would ever happen.

And we now have over 550 low to moderate income seniors and we have 100 rehabbed homes that single family moms are mostly occupying.

And today, a new venture for us is leased to own homes built through Ohio tax credit.

Moneys, it's worked.

We're giving people.

A lot of hope.

Narrator: It is often difficult for someone to understand the differences between the obligation of a sister to her religious life and her obligation to her current ministry or what laypeople would refer to as her job.

Sr. Margo Young: I don't think you can separate faith and and service.

As I recently read your contemplation, your religion, your faith directs action, but your action speaks to the integrity of your faith and your religion.

Sr. Anne Marie McMannus: I'm almost like a doctor on call, you know, on call when someone calls me and they need help, or if somebody calls me, needs advice, I'm there to help.

You know, you get all these different people that you meet into in society and you're there.

You're always available for the one who needs your help.

And that's the way I think we balance the religious life with with your you regular life, you know?

Sr. Rose Helene Wildenhaus: You know, we were taught there.

There's prayer and there's faith and doing.

And I look at what I'm doing as a.

Those two in my.

My personal life, prayer life, it's there.

And my workaday life isn't worth anything if I don't bring the prayer into it.

Just don't say the word, do the word.

Narrator: As the community continues to grow and expand, so does the role of a sister.

However, the numbers of sisters are declining.

This presents a challenge to each mission, but measures are being taken to ensure that the values and charism of each congregation will continue.

Sr. Dorothy Thum: The role of the sister of Mercy or the great nun or a religious woman today is different than it was when religious congregations were founded.

Other people are taking up the cause.

Other people are stepping in the shoes of the sisters and are willing to carry forth the mission.

But it's more of a role of leadership, and it's more of a role of bringing other people into the mission and saying together, we can all make a difference.

John Hayward: We actually have a sister of mercy on our staff at the college.

She is the last remaining sister of Mercy on the college staff, and she, along with her fellow Sisters of Mercy.

Meet with us periodically to make sure that we're understanding their mission, and we dedicate ourselves when we come aboard to cooperating with them to carry out the mission.

John O'Connell: Franciscan Services Corporation was created in 1984 as a consequence of the Sisters of Saint Francis of Sylvania, Ohio, making a decision that their ministry efforts in Health and Human Services would be stronger and more effective if they organized them and created a structure that would invite laypeople to come into partnership with them as they worked in their ministry.

At the present time, they sponsor six hospitals in two different states six nursing homes to continuing care retirement communities, independent senior housing, a domestic violence shelter and also a counseling center.

I think there are two little talked about facts and that come about when the sisters sponsor an organization, and one is it gives laypersons like myself John O'Connell: who also are like-minded with them the opportunity to join them and make some impact in communities other than an impact that a husband and wife can make on a family or in a parish.

And so they see the sisters and they see the worked at the sisters are sponsoring and they say that environment will help me make a difference and they join that.

The other is that in addition to providing health care, providing the services of long term care, and that the sisters extend their values and their philosophy into the organization so that they create a work environment that is governed by those values.

Sr. Pat Meyer: But I think the future actually lays in the fact that our laypeople, our real leaders for the future.

I think the sisters will always be.

But I think there will be less of us.

Sr. Constance Marie Suchala: If we can transmit our passion for education, our spirit of proclaiming God's goodness and Providence Care, then that mission will continue long past the last sister of Notre Dame.

Sr. Nancy Mathias: There's always another place.

There's another gap where service isn't provided, care isn't given.

And so I think the challenge for us as women religious.

So here I am doing.

I'm running a school and that's great.

But I have a wonderful eighth grade teacher could easily run the school.

Sr. Nancy Mathias: But over here, I see that there are women who do not have GEDs or women who are caught up in prostitution.

How can I go there and help and provide service to them to help them make a difference in their lives?

So there's a gap there, so I'm going to move over into that gap and serve after a while.

We would be really good at it.

And then I was by that time as a woman, a woman religious who have called it women or laymen to work with us.

Sr. Nancy Mathias: So now they can take over that and then let's move over to the next gap, but always filling the gap.

Where is the next gap?

Narrator: Some religious orders have associates who have made a commitment to the mission of a congregation but do not live in formal community with them.

Kay Shrewsbery: For those of us who are associates, it's it's about sharing the mission.

The terrorism of the Franciscans and the spiritual life, but not taking vows, not taking those vows of poverty, chastity, obedience.

I still live my own private life.

But I'm highly involved with both the sisters and the ministry.

I see religious life continuing, but I also see this partnership with associates as a way to continue religious life in the future.

Narrator: Our region would be drastically different if the sisters had not been asked to serve here.

Each day, they look within themselves to find a passion to serve us and our neediest neighbors.

Sr. Marianne Longo: Many people feel that there's not a place for religious women today because our contemporary society offers women so many opportunities that they didn't at that time.

They had education, they had nursing, they had a few other minimal things.

Now we have women that are lawyers, engineers.

They come from all walks and the remarkable women, and they choose to be with the nurses because of of the mission, but also because of their own spirituality and the sense of community.

Sr. Margo Young: So maybe it's more.

Instead of just being a labor force and doing work, it's being a presence that speaks perhaps a word that might bring our world together.

Sr. Nancy Mathias: And we need to be always challenged to be looking for that need and not become too comfortable where we are because it's sort of easy to be comfortable.

We've always done this.

We're going to keep on doing that.

But there's when you go to a new place, it stretches you and pulls you in ways that you never thought about.

But it's an opportunity to bring God to those, to those people just by who we are.

And you never know what kinds of seeds are planted in their lives, by our service, by our care, our love and our concern.

Sr. Maryann Bremke: I know that whatever we women religious are called upon to do, they will do how they'll do it.

I don't think anyone can.

Sr. Marilyn Marie Ellerbrock: Say, I believe we bring a segment of church life while we're not the total picture of church life.

We're a segment that can't be missing.

We speak to the church and to individuals in the church, something that is true for all of us.

That life can be lived in a simple way.

Narrator: The sisters have shaped our community.

Nearly everyone has been affected in some way by their presence.

Their spirit, inspiration and devotion helped set a course toward a better future.

By working together, our community and women religious can reach that better future and make it real.

Sr. Constance Marie Suchala: We would hope that our influence comes across through the persons that we are.

So you see the gospel values displayed and lived through our persons.

Sr. Karen Elliot: I want to be an example.

I want to be a disciple of Jesus Christ.

I want it to be obvious that regardless of whether I'm wearing a cross or not, that, you know, by my actions in my behavior that I am a disciple of Jesus Christ, that's the most important thing.

Sr. Dorothy Thum: What we're trying to do is to make a difference in today's world and try to help heal people's bodies, minds and spirits.

And I think when I hear the stories of people who have actually been touched by our experience, I see that we are indeed able to make a difference in people's lives.

Sr. Marilyn Keller: And that's why I think our role continues to be one of great importance.

The witness that we give that are that are reason for being where we are is that of being se jailers of, say, Francis, of being ministers of joy of peace care and love.

Sr. Rose Helene Wildenhaus: I often wonder, isn't it about time for me to retire?

And then I think.

I can't retire.

There's still too much.

To do, so as long as I have good health and my brains work and, you know, I'm sure I'll be out there doing something.

Sr. Mary Delores Gatliff: I think of the lives that I've been able to touch because I've been a sister that I wouldn't have been able to.

Had I chosen another vocation places that I've been.

People's lives who have crossed my path.

And I think I've made a difference.

(Music)