|
March 2007 Issue
Hope is the message
 |
Sister Elisa
Sacchettini was coming out of Mass at the Catholic Information
Center in downtown Grand Rapids when she heard someone
calling her name from an idling car. “Sister,”
a young woman called out, “Sister, thank you for
telling me I was not a mistake!”
Another time, Sister Elisa was shopping
at a local department store when she noticed an elegant
saleswoman who looked familiar. |
The woman approached Sister Elisa and said,
“Sister, do you remember me? I was in prison, and you
visited me. When I got out, I went through rehab and was able
to get this job.”
Such encounters are moments of grace for Sister
Elisa, a Consolata Missionary Sister whose work is to bring
the consolation of the Gospel to those who need it most. Sister
Elisa comes from a very beautiful part of this world, a town
called Borgomanero in northern Italy tucked near rolling hills
and a lake. But, for the past eight years, she has found beauty
in the unlikeliest of places – at the Kent County Jail.
There, she visits women incarcerated
for reasons ranging from drug use to prostitution to theft
or murder.
“I feel called to do this,” Sister
Elisa said. “I feel this is an area where the charisma
of consolation is best put to use.”
In this sense, “charisma” means
a unique gift to share with others. Sister Elisa found her
unique gift was to be of comfort, to share with others a message
of God’s hope.
But she finds that in giving, she also receives.
“We are so precious in God’s
eyes.”
It’s Saturday evening in the women’s
section of the Kent County Jail. About a dozen women of varying
ages file into a classroom-style room, putting chairs in a
circle to face each other. They come from varied backgrounds
and faiths, or no faith. It doesn’t matter. They’ve
come, literally, as they are. Sister Elisa brings with her
some CDs of religious or inspirational music for the Communion
service. She selects a passage from Scripture. Often, she
finds herself turning to verses from Psalm 139:
You formed my inmost being; you knit me in
my mother’s womb. I praise you, so wonderfully you made
me; wonderful are your works! My very self you knew …
Sister Elisa explained: “We are so precious
in God’s eyes. And yet, these women often feel they
are a mistake. I tell them, ‘You are not a mistake.
Don’t give anyone permission to put you down. The Lord
created you in a unique way, for a unique purpose.’”
For many of the women, the mistake that landed
them in jail takes on a life of its own, consumes them, until
the mistake is the core of their being. It is how they may
come to totally identify themselves: as a prostitute, as a
drug user, as a child abuser, instead of as a human being
with inherent worth and goodness.
Sister Elisa tries to help the women see the
mistake for what it was – a bad decision, yes, but also
an opportunity to revisit one’s purpose in life. And
to heal. As part of the healing process, she helps the women
to see that they are human beings who are eternally loved
by God.
“A mistake is one time. The Lord’s
love is forever,” Sister Elisa said.
It can be an ethereal message for people who
may be used to a gritty reality. But Sister Elisa’s
message of hope has helped more than one woman find her way
home inside her heart.
“I want to help these women to find
the beauty of God in themselves.”
When Sister Elisa emerges from the jail after
visiting with the women, she feels simultaneously energized
and at peace.
“There is a power in their poverty,”
she said.
The road to consolation
Sister Elisa wasn’t always “Sister
Elisa,” of course. In her early 20s, she was a cosmopolitan
young woman who lived not too far from the fashionable town
of Turin, owned a nice car and liked to travel up into the
mountains. She was “searching” during those travels,
searching for something, and finding it only after she visited
the Consolata Missionary Sisters Institute in Turin.
“I felt immediately at home there.”
She entered the convent in 1966 at age 25.
In 1978, she came to the United States, to
a Consolatas apostolate in an impoverished area of Alabama.
There, she worked in a variety of ministries and also wowed
the local children with her soccer skills.
She returned to Italy in 1993 where she worked
on assignments for the Center of the Institute until 1998.
That year, she returned to the United States, to Belmont,
Mich., where the Consolatas have a provincial house. Here,
she serves as the Consolatas regional treasurer in addition
to doing her prison jail ministry work. She also visits women
at One-Way House, a home where women, recently released from
jail, are still required to spend some time under supervision.
Traveling to various parts of the world in
service to others as she has, Sister Elisa embodies what we
may think of when we hear the word “missionary.”
But Sister Elisa says missionary work can be lived in the
course of everyday life.
“With just a smile, you can be a missionary
and a message of hope to others,” she said.
|
