April 10, 2013

Sister Mary Eamon Lyng, SSJ
Superior, Sisters of St. Joseph, Watertown

All glory, praise, and thanksgiving to God for this wondrous journey of love through faith!  The abundance of God’s love has been abundantly poured out in my life!  

The power of God’s love has come to me in unexpected ways and surprises. I believe that God will unfold and manifest His love if we trust in Him at all times.  I have learned that God’s ways and thoughts are never the same as mine.

Over and over, I am deeply grateful for the gift of my parents who lived and practiced the Catholic faith.  Their own faith had been nourished from their own family lives.

My father’s brother and sister had already dedicated their lives to priesthood and consecrated lives.  I thank my Mother and Dad who nurtured, sustained, and strengthened my faith journey and continue to do so from heaven above.

My parents’ love for each other was expressed in having five children of whom I am the oldest.   Each of us knew and experienced God’s love when my mother would trace the Sign of the Cross on our foreheads as infants and we would pray for each member of the family. 

Beginning to know God
It was in the home that we began to know God, His presence, and His love. Each room had a crucifix and in our living room, not only was there a crucifix on the wall, but holy pictures of Jesus and Mary as well.  Our home was consecrated to the Sacred Heart of Jesus.   The picture was enthroned over our piano in the center of our living room. There was never any question Who was the center of our lives.

It was my  father’s daily practice to make a visit to Holy Family Church after work that inspired me to want to be with Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament. Every Saturday, we went to Confession as a family.  Sunday morning, the whole Lyng family was at Holy Family Church, Watertown for Mass. Msgr. Albert Farrell, Msgr. Robert McCarthy, and Msgr. Anthony Milia were strong influences in our Catholic formation as our pastor   and assistants.   

My parents wanted to continue our faith formation with Catholic education.  I graduated from Holy Family School and Immaculate Heart Academy (IHA) where I was taught by the Sisters of St. Joseph. One of the many treasures of being at IHA was the availability of making daily visits in the chapel, looking up at the stain glass window of the Last Supper that was above the tabernacle. 

Entering Religious life
Daily Mass became a way of life for me during my high school days. It was these opportunities and experiences  that my nurtured my desire to grow in God’s love and to be of service to His people that sparked the desire to enter Religious Life as a Sister of St. Joseph. 

Sister Rosa Mystica Bailey, who taught me twice at Holy Family School, had always been a rock for me in a time when my mother had a long illness.  Throughout my school years, she continued to walk with me on my faith journey.   She forever became a friend who influenced my vocation to enter as a Sister of St. Joseph. 

I entered at Mater Dei College, Ogdensburg in September 1963. After a year as a postulant, I received the habit.  It was Sister Rosa Mystica who dressed me in my habit in June of 1964. I am still in awe of the great privilege of having the “best” of teachers at Mater Dei College who taught Theology and Philosophy. 

Msgr. Milia’s love of Scripture, Msgr. Peter Riani’s love for Christ and the Church, and Msgr. Paul Joly’s preciseness for Logic, truly deepened my spiritual formation and prayer life.

I was privileged to further my Biblical Studies at Providence College, Rhode Island where the Word of God began to truly take flesh within me!  The Dominican Fathers were the inspiration for my desire to know the Word of God. 

How grateful I am to God, to my Community, and to the many places I have ministered for the opportunity to have taught Scripture.  It has also been a privilege for me to teach so many people in the Formation Ministry Program and dedicated men in the Diaconate Program for the Diocese of Ogdensburg. 

My faith has grown because I have experienced the desire of each one to know God more deeply through His Word.

In the faces of children
It was always the faces of the children that I taught in the Catholic schools across the Diocese from the shores of Lake Champlain, to the Adirondack Mountains, to the tip of the Canadian border, and to the shores of the St. Lawrence River that I learned that it is a little child who leads the way to know God more clearly through humility and simplicity.

The ministry of being teacher and principal in the Catholic Schools broadened my vision to see children become who God intended them to be. The best means of evangelization that we have today is our Catholic Schools.  It is there that the children learn Gospel values across the curriculum.

Taking on new roles
After 34 years of Catholic school teaching, my faith was going to be challenged to become the Formation Director for the Diocese of Ogdensburg Department of Education.  I traveled around the Diocese learning the names of teachers and seeing the children they taught.  They, too, taught me more than I could ever teach them. 

Being a Catholic School teacher is a call to witness his/her faith in order to shape the child’s heart into the heart of Jesus.  What a privilege and an honor to have been part of the process.

After six years in the Department of Education, there was an opening to be Director of Evangelization. Sister Mary Ellen Brett had led the people of the parishes to form small communities to share their faith through the Disciples in Mission  program.  The reason for the Church to exist is to evangelize. 

From this mission, the people of God were strongly encouraged “to go out to the world” to proclaim the Good News and to build the kingdom of God.  How would they continue to go out to others to witness the faith? 
Now was my opportunity “to go out” to all the parishes to continue their life-long learning through a program called Why Catholic?

I experienced the deepening of the people’s faith and it was extended outward in a variety of ways to encourage them to deepen their own faith, to bring a friend with them to Church events, and to be a witness of their faith to those who have never heard of Jesus.  I was energized and enthusiastic about being “out there” facilitating workshops and retreats. 

What further deepened my faith was the response of so many people who filled St. Mary’s Cathedral for the St. Paul Event in 2009 and for this Year of Faith’s Opening Prayer Service: Witnesses of Faith.  The enthusiasm of the people’s faith to journey across the Diocese is a testimony of a deep commitment to the power of the Holy Spirit to renew the Church. 

I am so grateful that I have had the privilege to have been plunged into the power of God’s love as a pilgrim on this journey of love through faith.  Who knows the mind of God?  His ways are unsearchable and His wisdom is beyond me, but I have come to trust in Him more each day.

Again the challenge of a new beginning was upon me as I was asked to leave the Diocesan family to be with the Sisters at our Motherhouse.  This was to become a ministry of love, compassion, and care to the Sisters who shaped and formed me in my early years of education.  Now, it was my turn to return all that had been given to me back to them through love and service. 

God’s ways and thoughts are certainly not my ways and my thoughts.  All I desire is that I radiate the face of Christ and that someday that God’s will be done and that our thoughts and ways will coincide with each other so that God’s Kingdom will continue to be fulfilled and come to full fruition.

It is In This Place, at the Motherhouse, that I was able to reflect back to my days at IHA’s chapel, and to be in our present chapel 49 years later to look up at the stain glass window of the Last Supper over the tabernacle and pray: “We are gathered at table as one in the Lord.  We are gathered as people who are living the Word.  Our hearts and our spirits are nurtured by grace.  It is Jesus who fills us.  He is here in this place”.