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In this Issue:
Poetry from Our Sisters
GOACC Corporate Challenge
BayCare Restructure
"Apache Christ"
Santa Casa Hospital, Brazil
SEMS Grant Application
July Birthday List
Send Us Your News
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Correction for June 24th Issue
St. Mary's Medical Center is located in West Palm Beach, not Tampa, Florida.
We're sorry for the mistake!
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We recently asked the Sisters to share their original poetry with us. Now, we’re going to share three of the many poems we received with you.
We will be sharing more in future newsletters.
Any Sister who would like to share her poetry may still send it to anne.holliday@fsallegany.org or
Anne Holliday, PO Box W, St. Bonaventure, NY, 14778
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Heart Yearning
By: Judith Terrameo, OSF
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See this heart, O Lord;
cold and rigid.
Melt it down, O Lord;
mold it and fill it
that it may be the center from which flows
much love,
understanding,
patience and endurance.
Make of it your dwelling place,
transformed only by
Your love, my Lord.
Penetrate its hardness
leaving it open for an ever deepening
love for you
and your people …
those whom you place within
my life today.
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The Rainbow
By: Rose Bernhardt, OSF
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How splendidly
The bow spans
The horizon –
Dressed in an array
Of muted colors.
My heart rejoices
At its presence –
The manifestation
Of calm
And peace.
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The Gift
By: Rose Bernhardt, OSF
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Bright Wonder
Lord Divine
The Enchantment of
Peoples and Nations.
You fill to overflowing –
The emptiness within –
A transforming joy.
In gratitude –
I in turn to others give
That which so freely was
given to me.
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GOACC Corporate Challenge | |
More than two dozen St. Elizabeth Motherhouse employees were among the hundreds of people who participated in the Greater Olean Area Chamber of Commerce 14th Annual Southern Tier Corporate Challenge on June 27. | |
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BayCare has announced that it has established a new corporate legal structure to ensure that not-for-profit health care remains local and accessible for the communities of West Central Florida. Under the new legal structure, all of the health system’s hospitals and health care facilities and services are now fully and legally part of BayCare.
The new structure, which went into effect on June 30, replaces the 50-year joint operating agreement (JOA), which several local hospitals signed in 1997 to create BayCare, with a simplified corporate legal structure that mirrors current operations and has no end date. The new structure does not impact patients, team members, physicians, payors or vendors. BayCare remains not-for-profit, and its Catholic hospitals retain their Catholic identity.
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“We are building on the smart decisions of our founders so that we continue to improve the health of all we serve for decades to come,” said Jim Cantonis, chair of the BayCare Board of Trustees. | | |
BayCare has thrived under the JOA, growing into the region’s leading health care provider and one of its largest private employers, with 32,000 team members serving 16 hospitals and hundreds of other locations. Its founding members -- the Franciscan Sisters of Allegany, Morton Plant Mease Health Care and South Florida Baptist Hospital -- ensured BayCare remained committed to its communities’ health. BayCare dedicates 10% of its revenues annually to charity care and community services, known as Community Benefit. | |
St. Elizabeth Motherhouse Petting Zoo | | |
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Michael Morton from Sundance Kids Farm brought his petting zoo to St. Elizabeth Motherhouse Friday afternoon. The Sisters, Motherhouse staff and Congregational Office staff enjoyed meeting and feeding the animals. | |
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An Indigenous image of Jesus Christ painted by a Franciscan friar was removed from a New Mexico church for unspecified reasons but was returned a week later.
Acclaimed iconographer Br. Robert Lentz, who lives at St. Bonaventure University, painted “Apache Christ” and gifted it to the Mescalero people. It had hung in the church for nearly 30 years until it was removed sometime between the evening of June 26 and the early morning hours of June 27.
After outcry from the parishioners, the artist and other interested parties on July 3 local friars told Sr. Margaret Magee the bishop took the pastor out of the parish and the icon will be returned.
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“Apache Christ” is an 8-foot icon depicting Jesus as a Mescalero holy man, with the inscription in Apache “giver of life.”
Since the removal of the icon, Lentz has said that his being the artist is not important. What is important is that it has become part of the spiritual life of the Catholic people of Mescalero. “It has enabled them to become agents of their faith, no longer passive recipients, at the mercy of a colonizing power.”
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FSA Congregational Minister Sr. Margaret Magee sent the following letter to the bishop and deacon
before she learned the icon would be returned.
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Bishop Baldacchino
Cc: Deacon John Eric Munson, OFS
I write to express the pain and sadness I feel in hearing of the events that have taken place at St. Joseph Apache Mission, Mescalero, NM.
The removal of the icon of the Apache Christ, a gift of the iconographer Br. Robert Lentz OFM, and the other items is a crime, especially when done under the cover of night without explanation. I know Br. Robert Lentz. My heart goes out to him and the people of St. Joseph Apache Mission. These events are a grave injustice to their heritage and their spirituality.
I was discouraged and disheartened when I listened to the recorded phone call between Deacon John Munson and a woman parishioner. I was saddened when he said that the church building and the icon are the property of the church and they do not belong to the people. I was dismayed with his remarks that the church is a corporation, and that the people are not members. Is it any wonder that people, good faithful Catholics, are leaving the church? In Matthew 16:18, Jesus said, “And so I say to you, you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church.” Clearly, Jesus did not come to establish a corporation.
What has happened to the teaching of the church on the sacrament of baptism where we are all made members of the body of Christ? It is painful to hear the report of the parishioners saying that their pastor said that they must choose to be Apache or to be Catholic. Can people stop being who God has created them to be?
The June 2024 statement, Keeping Christ’s Sacred Promise: A Pastoral Framework for Indigenous Ministry, approved by the full body of the USCCB Assembly claims that as shepherds you have a sacred duty to ensure that Christ’s promise is fulfilled in Catholic Indigenous communities. I pray that justice may be restored, that forgiveness will be sought, and healing will take place when the sacred icon and other items are returned the church and to the people. I pray that the people of St. Joseph Apache Mission are told that the church is their sacred place of worship where God dwells with them.
May Christ’s healing begin!
Sincerely,
Sr. Margaret Magee OSF
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Santa Casa Hospital, Brazil | |
Team members from St. Joseph’s and BayCare in Florida recently met with the administrators at Santa Casa Hospital in Anapolis, Brazil. Sister Pat Shirley said the Americans had nothing but praise for what Santa Casa was able to do with so little funding and the Brazilians were grateful for the advice of the American team. We’ll have a full story and more pictures in the next newsletter. | |
SEMS Grant Application
By: Laura Whitford, President
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St. Elizabeth Mission Society is pleased to accept applications for its 2024 grant cycle (due July 15, 2024) for projects in which the Franciscan Sisters of Allegany and their Associates are actively engaged and provide services to those who are poor at home and abroad. As a reminder, Congregational grants are no longer offered and are now included with the Mission Society grants.
The application is attached in Word and PDF format.
All applications are due July 15, 2024, complete with signatures of BOTH: an actively engaged Sister or Associate AND a Leadership Contact.
For ANY questions, please contact: Laura Whitford, Mission Society President, at (716) 373-1130 or LWhitford@FSAllegany.org.
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We Want to Hear From You! | |
We would love to include more news from Brazil, Bolivia, Jamaica and Mozambique in our newsletter. If you have any pictures, tidbits of information or bigger stories you’d like to share please email them to
FSA Communications Coordinator
Anne Holliday anne.holliday@fsallegany.org
If you have any questions about whether it’s something that could or should go in this newsletter, you can ask Anne about that, too. But she’ll probably say, “Yes, send it.” 😊
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Newsletter Content Submission Deadline:
July 22nd Publication: Due 12:00pm EST - July 19th
August 12th Publication: Due 12:00pm EST - August 9th
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