Submitted by Annette Behnen Jesh
CST Class of 1968
After the College of Saint Teresa closed, Sister Michaea Byron was asked by Bishop Jerome Hanus, of the Diocese of Saint Cloud to come and work with a team started by the Benedictine Sisters of St. Joseph, and join with the preeminent group of practicing physicians in St. Cloud, the St. Cloud Clinic of Internal Medicine, and the St. Cloud Hospital, as part of the CentraCare System. After that was accomplished, she also was asked by Bishop John Kinney to start three other projects for the Diocese of St. Cloud. He saw that there was a nationwide movement for a Diocese to have a Health Ministry. Sister Michaea was appointed as the first Health Minister, charged to provide some oversight for the Catholic Long-Term Care facilities in the Diocese to connect with the hospital ethics team to advance its mission, and thirdly, because there was a movement among Bishops in the US to promote Parish Nursing, (now referred to as Faith Community Nursing or “FCN”), she was charged to start parish nursing in the Diocese of Saint Cloud.
Sister Michaea formed a group of professionals, from all walks of life, to work on the FCN program, of which I became a part, serving as a representative of Public Health. This group, Health Ministries of Central MN, included the16 counties of the Diocese of St. Cloud and the CentraCare System. Their mission was to start and support parish nursing and serve as an oversight group for faith community nursing. They also formed the Central MN FCN Ministry Committee to help FCNs work together in support of the goals of faith community nursing. I drove Sister Michaea around central Minnesota as she met with groups of parish nurses. She shared a wealth of knowledge about her faith, her life, and living the Gospel.
One of the first things she arranged was to collaborate with the College of Saint Benedict, which had a Nursing Degree Program, to have two Nursing Instructors teach the Foundations of Parish Nursing Class at St. Ben's, which was created by the International Parish Nurse Center and the American Nursing Association. By 2002, when I took classes, there were 26 RNs in my class who were commissioned as FCNs. They went on to serve as volunteers or paid FCNs in their churches, and added the faith component to their nursing careers.
Sister Michaea found a way to support the efforts of the FCN program by negotiating the financial support of the CentraCareCommunity Benefit Funds from the CentraCare Foundation starting in 1993-1995. That support continues today, serving as one of the strongest FCN programs in the state. Sister Michaea mentored me and I was able to take on the role of Coordinator of FCN from 2011 to 2020. She had a real vision of a place for women in the church because of her unique view of the CST Nursing Program and the women leaders it produced.
Following the work initiated by Rev. Granger Westberg in what he called "whole-person care," and Irene Beland’s nursing curriculum on Clinical Nursing which focused on “whole” person care (mind, body, and spirit), Sister Michaea Byron was a force, enriching a vision for nursing and faith in the church in Minnesota and nationally. Sister Michaea could see this movement starting and was “called” to support the work of Registered Nurses into roles in churches. She researched, studied, and implemented that vision for the Diocese of Saint Cloud. What a privilege it was to work with Sister Michaea!
