Sister Betty Celebrates Her Golden Jubilee

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Sister Betty Celebrates Her Golden Jubilee
By Jeanne Ringel
May 2, 2004, 09:53

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Sister Betty, well on the mend from her recent knee surgery, poses for one last photo before her Golden Jubilee Mass.

Saturday, April 24th, was a day to rejoice and to celebrate at the Grey Nuns of the Sacred Heart Motherhouse in Yardley, PA. Thirteen sisters, with 735 years "of grace, of striving, of service" between them, celebrated Jubilees (six 50 year Jubilarians, six 60 year Jubilarians and one 75 year Jubilarian). Among those renewing their vows was our own Sister Betty, celebrating 50 years as a Grey Nun.

In the mid 1700s, foundress, St. Marguerite d'Youville, began her charity work in Montreal, Canada. When faced with seeing human misery and the pain of the poor, St. Marguerite dedicated herself to being a sign of God's constant and unconditional love for every person. Fifty years ago, Sister Betty made that same decision, and has served thousands of people since taking her final vows in 1954. More than ten of those 50 years, or more than 20% of her career, were spent with us here at Resurrection Catholic Church.

During those years she:

delivered too many homilies to count;
broke ground for the expansion when we rapidly outgrew the original Resurrection Church;
worked with our parishioners to raise the money to pay off not only the original mortgage, but the note on the expansion as well;
stood shoulder to shoulder with the Resurrection family when we were hurt deeply and personally by the atrocity of terrorism on September 11th;
and again on September 11, 2002, when, as a sign of how far this country had come in one year, Father Rolo blessed the grotto;
blessed the playground with Father Rolo (though to this day, she refuses to go down the slide);
and has comforted many of us as we grieved the loss of our loved ones.

Another familiar face amongst the Jubilarians was Sister Connie Welsh. Many of you may remember Sister Connie from the time she spent in Moneta with Sister Betty. Additionally, we should take a moment and remember Sister Michael Nolan, who would have shared this Golden Jubilee with Sister Betty.

Sister Betty and Sister Connie, both Jubilarians, take a moment to relax after renewing their vows.

On the last page of the Jubilee program, the Jubilarians put together this "prayer":

75 years 60 years 50 years

Years of grace, of striving, of service.

Years that would be impossible without the love and support of family and friends, without the example and mentoring of our Grey Nun sisters, without the awesome and powerful grace of God.

Our hearts are filled with gratitude to those loved ones able to celebrate with us, to those loved ones who have gone before us in the sign of faith.

We SING A NEW SONG of praise and thanks UNTO THE LORD for each of you.

ALLELUIA

So to Sister Betty, Congratulations and THANK YOU for your 50 years of selfless service to others. God Bless!

"Our hearts are filled with gratitude to those loved ones able to celebrate with us..."

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