 And now I will turn things over to Father Jerry. Thanks, Jess. During COVID, we concocted a program that allowed us to introduce the Jesuits who had played a role in the life of so many of you during your Fairfield years. Father Jim Bowler, who else, Jess? We had Charlie Allen. Who else did we interview? Father Samisky, Father Rourke. We had quite a few of them. So we had quite a number of Jesuits over the course of that pandemic. And the point was not to push these individual Jesuits, but to present them as exemplars, if you like, embodiments of a way of approaching life, of a way of approaching yourself and God, of a way of entering into this Ignatian spirituality, Jesuit spirituality, that we hope somehow infiltrated your lives, whether you knew it or not, during your years at Fairfield. It was Carol and Rosakis who said, OK, wonderful. And appropriate that we looked at those important Jesuits. But now it's time to look at our alumni and alumni who in their own way, as religious or as married or as single women and men, also have carried out into the world and into their own relationships in their building of families, a vision and a spirituality that was inspired by their time at Fairfield and that has grown based on that initial inspiration. And so with Carolyn's help, Jessica and Janet Canapa and I tried to assemble a list of alumni and alumni that we wanted to highlight. And we're calling this, Jess, what's the name of our series? Alumni Stories, Lives That Inspire. Alumni Stories, Lives That Inspire. And the more, I mean, we have a vast list, to be honest with you, of alumni. And these are the ones who were in some obvious way, have a story to tell that is deeply inspirational. But I'd go so far as to say that if we had the time, pretty much everybody on this list, pretty much everybody who's here, if we had the time, if we could tell your stories and as ambiguous and as mixed in your view as they might be, I'm sure your stories would be inspiring, maybe with their ups and downs, but still stories that would inspire people to have hope and to live with love and to live with respect. We're very, very pleased tonight to present to you one of your fellow alumni, Colleen Gibson, member of the class of 2009. Well, Colleen will tell us about her story. Am I wrong with it? Is it not 2009? Nope, 2009, you're right. Okay, 2009. Now, I want to confess from the very beginning, and I say this with incredible gratitude. Colleen, as you see, has behind her name, SSJ. That means the sisters of St. Joseph. And the sisters of St. Joseph were the nuns who taught me when I was a little boy a thousand years ago in Lebanon, Pennsylvania. The sisters of St. Joseph, of Chestnut Hill, probably the most valiant and most generous or the most troublesome of them were sent to the wilds of Pennsylvania, of central Pennsylvania, to the Dutch country out of the elite world of Philadelphia to teach the country folks like me living in rural Pennsylvania. And I have to tell you that if I'm a Jesuit today, I don't want to blame the sisters, but they have more to do with it than I can possibly explain. Colleen can say more about the Jesuit who helped found the sisters, Father Medai, Father Jean-Pierre, what's he? Jean-Pierre Medai. But Jean-Pierre Medai had what he called maxims. As a little boy, seven years old, I was taught, I memorized this, live your life with one desire only to be always what God wants you to be. Imagine, some nun who had heard this in the novitiate, Colleen, I don't know whether you heard it, but this maxim from Father Medai who wrote this in the 17th century in La Puy, France. Some nun in central Pennsylvania taught us simple kids and we learned and it lives with me still. Live your life with one desire only to be always what God wants you to be. And another one that I still memorize and say to myself every day, never think of tomorrow unless it has some necessary link with today, but entrusted entirely to providence. And one more, if everything in everything and in everywhere have only God and God's will and God's glory before your eyes and make no account of anything else. I learned about devotion. I learned about generosity. I learned the essentials of Ignatian spirituality before I ever heard the name Ignatius of Loyola from Colleen's sisters, I could mention their names and I have to out of reverence, Sister Thomas Regina, Sister Theophilus, Sister Rayfield, Sister Mary Magdalene, Sister Vincent Ignatius, Sister Isabelle, these women to whom I owe so much. So Colleen on a purely personal note a debt of gratitude to you and to your community. I welcome you to this opportunity to share your life and your story and your vocation and the special powers of your community. So Colleen, where are you now? And what are you up to? Oh, well, Jerry, thank you so much for that introduction. I think we're bonded together. Even that last maxim that you quoted, maxim 16 is my favorite. It's one of the first ones that I learned as a sister. Keep always before your eyes. God, God's will and God's grace and make no account of anything else. So where am I right now? I'm in Boston, Massachusetts. So right now I find myself studying theology at Boston College School of Theology and Ministry, studying for masters of theological studies in practical theology. So really interested in where the rubber meets the road, where theory and practice work together. And so that's what I do during my days. I read and I write and I interact with the wonderful community here. I'm living with the Sisters of St. Joseph of Boston right now. So it's this wonderful network of Sisters of St. Joseph. And then if you read my bio before you came on here, if you had no clue who Sister Colleen Gibson was, I do some writing ministry. So I write for the National Catholic Reporter, forgive us this day, which is a daily devotional. I have a podcast behind the habit or beyond the habit, which is all about challenging our assumptions of what it means to be Catholic and live the gospel. And so that's a little bit about me and what I do these days. Colleen, we had not sort of planned this, but how did you become somebody who became, in effect, found your vocation as a spokesperson, to do podcasts and to do writing? Did you ever enter? How did that happen? Well, actually when I was at Fairfield, I have to mention him, dear Dr. Paul Lakeland, I went into his office as a junior going into my senior year and I said to him, I don't know what I want to do with my life, but I think I might want to be a journalist. And he looked right at me and he said, you're not a journalist. He said, I've only known you for five minutes, 10 minutes. He said, you have an effervescence. I can't picture you in a newsroom full of smoke and full of editors. And he said, maybe you're a writer. And so from that moment forward, and I come from a line, my father was an English major in college. So I was always taught, I was the only, I always say I was the only sixth grader who was looking to find their voice in the papers they were writing in sixth grade. So I just love to write. And so that has expanded out from there. And I find the easiest thing to write about is your own story and the story of God alive in the world. And so it brings me so much joy. So these things people always say, how do you have time for the things that you do to write these columns, to film these podcasts? I always say, it brings me joy. It's a great grace to be able to talk about our life. And I think so few people have met, sisters or women religious, that it's an opportunity. We have to be out there. Back in the day when you had the sisters in Lebanon, you had that exposure one-on-one. And today, so few people meet sisters that I think it's important in spreading the good news of the gospel that everybody can have contact and know that this pathway, this vocation in the church exists and that there's people living it and finding joy in it. So yeah. Colin, you must find people who say to you, what the hell are you doing? Why are you wasting your life? I mean, people, like I said, they were, you know, at the convent of St. Mary that our lady of the Assumption in Lebanon, Pennsylvania, we probably had 20 nuns, also all of your sisters. But I mean, as you say, your peers and people and generations, both before you and after you, the story of a young woman who's obviously intelligent and self-possessed and gifted, this must arouse incredible curiosity, your vocation itself. Oh yeah. I think people, I mean, I was fascinated by it. I think when I first started thinking about the sisters, I had never met a sister before. And so it was- Why? You had never met- Never met a sister. A religious sister before. Went to public school in New Jersey, my whole life. So K through 12 and actually came to Fairfield because it was a Catholic school. And I knew my faith was important. We had been raised. My parents taught my CCD classes in our parish. We did service. I didn't realize it wasn't normal to be at church multiple times a week until I talked to other people and I went, oh, you're not doing, you aren't going on service trips in the summer and things like that. So yeah, it's just that, when I told people though, it was a curiosity, but it was also, I had a Jesuit at Fairfield first when I told him I was interested. He said, are you gonna quit school to do this? I was a freshman. I said, no, that's crazy. Who does that? Well, if you might have in the 1950s and the 1960s, you might have done a year or two in college and then entered the convent and I thought, well, that's, if being a sister seems strange to quit school, I was like, everyone in my life, I'll be disowned if I quit school to do this. But there was something about it that I was drawn to the sense of community, to the life we lead and to a deep life of active prayer. We call ourselves contemplatives in action and so we're doing that work of growing in relationship with Jesus, but also growing in relationship with the people of God. And so I saw that in our sisters and I thought, okay, I think there's something here that I need to look into. And so even when people said, and it was people you thought, I thought, oh, they'll be on board 100%, they were like, you shouldn't do this. This is crazy. Have you thought about doing something else? And you can do service on the side. And then there were people who I thought, these people will be opposed to this. They'll think, I'm throwing all this opportunity away. And they were the people who said, you light up when you talk about what you do with the sisters. And so, yeah, so I think it was not, for me, I really found a home and found a life and found joy. When I got here, it was kind of like, oh, I didn't know I was searching for this, but here it is. Wow. We'll come back to that in a second, but you mentioned you're from where in New Jersey. So I'm from Hillsborough, New Jersey, which is central New Jersey. Okay. And how did you end up coming to Fairfield? So I ended up coming to Fairfield. So I had gone to public school my whole life. And I knew I wanted to go to a Catholic school. I knew I had been involved in my youth group, had been involved in a number of things. And so when I looked at different schools, Fairfield, I went into my guidance counselor in high school and said, I wanna go to a Catholic school. And they gave me a list of all the Catholic schools in the country. And we're like, here, figure it out. I was, my graduating class from high school was 900 people. So they didn't have time to do one-on-one discernment. But when I looked at Fairfield, the honors program was really appealing to me. I knew I wanted to study American studies, which is really an interdisciplinary major. And Fairfield had it. When I came to visit, I visited campus ministry because I knew that was gonna be important in some way. And so the more and more people I met at Fairfield, I thought, oh, there's something here. I've gotta try it out. So it was a combination, and it was Ignatian spirituality. The way Jerry, you kind of said, you didn't realize that those sisters were teaching you Ignatian spirituality. I wouldn't have had the words when I was touring around the campus or hearing about the Ignatian Residential College or all these different things. They were using Ignatian spirituality and it's so rooted in what Fairfield is. It was really appealing. There was something, when I would go back and think about where do I wanna go, those questions from the Ignatian Residential College, who are you, who's are you, and who are you called to be? They kept on coming back. I was like, I wanna answer those questions. And this seems like a place that is open to letting me explore that. Wow, wow. So what happened to you when you came here? Well, you mentioned Carolyn Rezykus. I actually- Is she here, Carolyn? Are you here? Are you here, Carolyn? Well, I owe a lot to Carolyn. I mean, as a high school senior, I came to visit Kelly Lefley, who I think is here, who was Kelly Beatty then, gave me a tour around. But when I got to Fairfield, I really dove in. At first, there were things I didn't realize about Fairfield that I should have. I didn't realize it was on Long Island Sound. I didn't realize kind of the stereotype of what somebody who went to Fairfield was. Which was what? What was the stereotype there? At that time, so I would have gotten to Fairfield in 2005. Popped collars were in polo shirts with the collar up, kind of a preppy sensibility. I didn't realize there was a beach. I didn't realize any of those things. So I think it was kind of an anomaly, but I fell in with a group of friends who are still my friends to this day or some of my dad's friends. Wow. And I joined the rugby team. I love my rugby friends. Wait, wait, wait. You got mixed up with the rugby thugs? They are not thugs. I always say rugby. It takes one of every kind. 15 people on the field and we're all there to support one another. So, you know. Oh, you're so defensive of those rugby guys and women. Well, I could take you down, Jerry. I know how to tackle. I'm sure you could, girl. You get the needs. I'm sure you could. All right, so rugby and campus ministry. Yep. And that's what I got involved in. And then academically, I was doing my American studies thing as part of the honors program. And I took a religious studies course was the first course I took at Fairfield, 8 a.m. with Nancy Della Valley. Wow. Introduction to religion. And I remember Nancy just saying, you're gonna have to work hard to get an A in this class. And, but she opened my universe to a whole different way of thinking about God and looking at God and feminist perspectives on God. And then I think of, you know, Elizabeth Dry, there were all these classes that I took. So eventually it became an American studies major and a religious studies major together. I really looked at, you know, how does American society and how does Catholicism operate in American society? Which is kind of still what I do today. Wow. Yeah. So the foundations even of the professional and academic work and the writing that you do and the media work you do. Yeah. It was all really nurtured. It was really nurtured by the people that you met here. Yeah. And people saw gifts, they called forth gifts in me. And I always say, you know, people will say, oh, you were the valedictorian of your class. And I say, you know, yes, I was smart and I studied hard. But at Fairfield, it's unique that the valedictorian is you write a speech. And so it was that writing. You know, I told stories in that speech. I told stories about time doing service in the Philippines. And that, you know, we're not called to eventually go out into real life. Like, you know what you say when you graduate like welcome to the real world. Like that's not actually what is happening. If you at Fairfield, I learned and encountered the real world. I was doing service in Bridgeport. I was thinking big ideas and asking big questions. Jess, did you mention to people that they can ask questions or ask us to address concerns? Did you tell them that? I did. Everybody feel free. If you do have questions, use the chat and you could submit something and we'll get to them as we can fit them in or as they're relevant for the topic we're discussing. Obviously, I'm guessing that there were many of you here who were contemporaries of Colleen's. And so if you'd like to add something or correct her or amplify what she says, this is your golden opportunity. Don't miss it. I mean, it's very powerful story that you tell. So was it here? Oh, all right. Thanks, Jocelyn. Jocelyn, Colleen has said to everybody, everything Colleen has said is true. Would a sister lie to you? I mean, really. Not any of the sisters that I knew. But you damn well better not have lied to them either. Okay, so you decided, did you decide while you were here to the notion of a religious location arise while you were here or did it come later Colleen? So, I mean, when I tell my vocation story, I always say I started thinking about being a sister probably when I was in late middle school, early high school. You know, this thought popped up now because I didn't know any sisters. It was really, I knew, I always say I knew Maria from the sound of music and would be Goldberg from Sister Act. And I thought, I'm neither one of those sisters. So, you know, this must not be the life for me. But I saw people living their faith. There were lay people in my parish who were living their faith. I was an altar server. We were doing, my brother and I were doing all sorts of work at the church. Our family was very active. And I saw priests who, you know, love their life. And so I thought there's gotta be something for women in this church. There's gotta be something like that. But I also thought, you know, as I looked into it, this is crazy. And so when I got to Fairfield, my freshman year, I went on a, I went on a Kairos retreat. And I said to a Jesuit there, you know, I said, I'm thinking about religious life. And he said to me, are you thinking, are you gonna leave? And I said, no, that's crazy. And you Jesuits are very tricky. And so he paused. And then he said to me, but if it comes back, you know, he said, forget about it. And then he said, but if it comes back, then you need to pay attention to this. And, you know, in my 18 year old mind, that was, it never went away then. It kept on coming back. Never went away. Never went away. And then when I was a senior, I was going into my senior year, I went to World Youth Day with a whole group from Fairfield and met Jesuit schools from all over the world. And there, Mark Scalise, who was at Fairfield. He was a campus minister then. Yep. He, we were looking over Sydney Harbor one night while we were there. And he said to me, you know, what are you doing? What are you going to do after you graduate? And at that point I was, I was going to get an internship at Commonwealth magazine and this writing life that I was going to do. It was all set. I smell Paul Lakewood here. So I said, you know, I think that's what I'm going to do. And he said, no, what are you actually going to do with your life? And I thought, oh, we're having that conversation. We're having a conversation. We're not talking about what my job is going to be. And I said, you know, I've always thought about, you know, religious life. I said, but I, I think it's crazy. I don't, nobody, I can't see anybody who is my age who's doing it. I don't know any sisters. And he said to me, you know, you have to take a step. If you take a step and you realize you don't like it, then you can, you can write it off and you can go off and be a writer and do all of that. But if you never try, or if you never take a step, you'll never know. And you'll always ask yourself why. And so after that trip, when I came back to the U.S., I went online and you can fill out surveys. You have this website vocationmatch.com. It's just like match.com. Vocation.com, really? Vocationmatch.com. Anybody else? I should try it and see whether they tell me I should be at Jesuit. So you matched the Jesuits and I matched, I didn't know what I wanted. So I checked every box imaginable. I matched, I think it was something like, I don't know, 240 congregations in the United States. And you answered questions on that survey, like, you know, what's your image of God? What's your prayer life like? And I got many, many emails back, as you can imagine. And one of those emails is from the Sisters of St. Joseph. And I'm a person who loves words. And so our charism, kind of the mission that we live, when I saw it in writing, from all these different vocation ministers, because there's 14 different congregations of Sisters of St. Joseph in the United States. So I got multiple emails. I would read, you know, we believe in a love of God in neighbor without distinction. We believe in finding God in all things. I would read those words and I'd think, oh, there's something, there's something there. I don't know what it is, but I would email them back and say, you know, if you could, you know, get in touch with me in three, four or five months, that would be great. And I thought, they'll forget. They'll forget about me and then I'll be free. I took the step Mark told me to take and then I'll get off scot-free. And our long story short, or a little bit shorter, eventually our vocation director, the sister who's kind of in charge of talking to people might be interested in Philadelphia. A year later, I was working at Commonwealth. I had graduated, she called and she said, you know, would you ever want to just come and visit, you know, just like for a, like a weekend visit, maybe an overnight. And I said, you know, at that point, I was in the right spot. And I just thought, yeah, yeah, I think I'd like to take a step and try it out. And so that set the ball in motion. So what did you see? So eventually you decided that the Sisters of St. Joseph would be your way of taking this risk of making this move. That meant that you were, I guess, in a formation program and a postulancy and then eventually novitiate. What did that look like? Yeah, so I ended up, I was, I worked at Commonwealth and I ended up, I left my job. I thought I can write anywhere. I can take my pen and go anywhere. I said, I need contact with these, with these sisters. I need an experience. And so I did it like Jesuit volunteer corps. We had a volunteer program. And so I went and did the volunteer program with the Sisters. And in the... Where was that calling? Where did you do that? It was in Philadelphia. Yeah, it was... Well, God, because that's kind of the cultural, the cultural next to the cultural cradle of your community. So what was that like? To me, actually, you know, you see, you see the vocation as it articulates itself in print, but then you meet the women who are living it. What was that like? To actually see people who were trying to live this out in the circumstances of their ministries and in the circumstances of community life. Yeah, so I ended up, I worked in the inner city. If anybody knows Philadelphia, Kensington is a, it's a, it's a rough neighborhood. And when I was there, I was a St. Vincent de Paul visitor. I went out and visited people, you know, recent immigrants, the elderly and homebound, all sorts of people. And I would just say to them, tell me your story. And how can we help you? How can the parish that I was working with help you? And I worked side by side with sisters there. And at a certain point I thought, I really look up to these women, you know, they're really, pardon my French, like they're really kind of bad asses. Like, you know, they, nobody messes with a sister. Like, and I would walk from house to house. We're back to the rugby player moment. It's true, but I realized I looked up to them and I thought, do I just, do I want to be like them? Or am I one of them? And I finally came to the point where I thought, I think I am one of them. I don't think I just look up to them. And so then, you know, I was working in the inner city and then I moved into a formation program, a more formal formation program, moved in with the sisters in the neighborhood. They were doing literacy and English as a second language, English for non-native speakers. And I was still working at the parish. And then eventually I kind of said, okay, let's take the next step. And at that point you move into what we call the novitiate, which is a process of deep study. So you're getting to know the congregation and know who we are, what our mission is, what our history is, and really discerning, kind of saying, is this the life that I want to live? And you learn about our vows. So sisters are saying, just of all, apostolic women in religious take three vows, poverty, chastity, and obedience. And so you learn about those vows and you kind of, you're growing in your relationship with God and saying, you know, is this the life where I am most fully myself and where I can give most fully to the world? And so that's a two-year process. And I was with sisters from all over the country at that point. Oh, so you had an inter-congregational, all the sisters of St. Joseph nationally have one novitiate. Is that the case? Yeah, so we're a federation. So I was in Chicago for a year. It was the coldest winter I had ever experienced. I felt my nasal passages freeze, but it was a great blessing. We had wonderful presenters. I taught Montessori school while I was doing that, one day a week. They sent me a dear sister in Philadelphia. We are traditionally, as you would know, teachers. It's not in our charism. Our charism doesn't say that education is what our mission is, but traditionally that's what we had done as a community. And so one of the sisters in Philadelphia while I was there had me teach congregational history. So that's like French Revolution, 17th century France to fourth graders. Jerry, you can only imagine. They must have been fascinated. Well, you know what? They taught me more about our charism. I once asked, our sisters were sent from France to the United States. And I said, what do you think that felt like for that sister who had to do that? She sent two of her nieces and she was never gonna see them again. And this fourth grade boy said to me, he said, I think I know how she felt. I said, oh, why do you think she did it? And he said, because my dad, my dad coaches my Little League baseball team. He said, and he knows he can put me in any position and he knows that I'll be able to play it. And he said, she knew that her nieces could play any position. And so she must have just trusted them. And I thought, well, that's the best explanation I've ever gotten of that. So it was a blessing. So in that time, I grew to know our congregation and really kind of say, yeah, I wanna say yes to this and make my first. Paranthetically, we'll get, I don't know whether we'll have time, but we'll get back to this. The sisters were founded before the French Revolution. And once the French Revolution came, this very flourishing foundation of women really was decimated. And there were sisters of St. Joseph who were taken to the guillotine. And it took Mother St. John Fontpont to reassemble the sisters after the French Revolution and bring them back to life. So cycles of birth, cycles of flourishing and cycles of death and cycles of rebirth are not new to your community, right? It's very true. Yeah, we say we're always, well, one of our things in our constitutions, we say each day we make a new beginning in our little institute. And so every day we start over again, but there are these cycles in religious life. People today say religious life is dying. Like there are fewer sisters, sisters are dying off. You say, oh, this is not new. This is, it's cyclical. It was an anomaly that we had all these sisters in the 60s who entered. We had, in 1961, I believe, we had 111, somebody's gonna, can correct me, 111 sisters enter that year on one day. Wow, wow. In 2011 when I entered, we had one sister, me, enter for the whole year and for many years on either side. But it's a cycle, you know, and we've re-found ourselves and we realize how does our mission apply today in this space to the needs of the world because the needs are always changing. Colleen, did you, while you were the novitiate, did you begin to sense that your gifts and your previous experience, that they were gonna lead you in some direction or what happened from the novitiate? What was your next assignment after the novitiate? Did you go right to studies? Did you wanna go to studies right away? One of the things in my discernment early on when I met with that vocation director, I had said, you know, I'm interested in studying. And I said, you know, is it more valuable that I come with a degree to the congregation or that I bring our charism to my studies? Let it influence, you know, my formation as a sister influenced my studies. And in my discernment, she didn't tell me, she didn't say, oh, you should just come now. She let me figure it out and let me pray about it. And so I came to the realization, I needed to do this. I needed to take the step or I would never take it. And so I didn't go right into studies. I went right into ministry after my novitiate. What did you do right out of the novitiate? I was a college campus minister at Chestnut Hill. Oh my goodness, so this must have brought all kinds of memories of campus ministry back here at Fairfield, service trips, retreats, you know, rugby, you know, the whole routine. Yeah, for sure. What was that like for you? What did you bring from your Fairfield experience to your work? I'm imagining you were at Chestnut Hill. Yeah, yeah, so I was at Chestnut Hill. Well, somebody I see in the chat asked if I went on any service trips. So at Fairfield, you know, the campus ministry department is excellent. I mean, there are multiple campus ministers serving different areas of expertise. When I got to Chestnut Hill, there were two of us, two sisters in campus ministry. And campus ministry was one room. Whereas at Fairfield, you know, it's a chapel on top of the campus ministry center. And so while I was there, I learned at Fairfield, I learned how to do all these different things. I was leading retreats. I was going on service trips. I went after the hurricane in New Orleans. I was in Mississippi. I was in the Philippines doing service. I was in Bridgeport doing service, kind of all over the place. So when I got to Chestnut Hill in Philadelphia, I had these skills that had been cultivated in the novitiate, but really seeds that had been planted at Fairfield. And so we hit the ground running because there when there's only two people, you do everything. You know, it's not like, oh, well, you take this, you know, you do this retreat and I'll do this service trip. It's like, no, we'll both be running the retreats. I bet you had no Deb Piccarazzi either too. No, never. And my desk, I mean, it was really a gift. My desk was in the middle of that room that was the campus ministry center. And so every day, you know, you ask like, how did you learn to talk about your vocation or talk about the sisters? Every day, to a tee, kids would come in and say to me, kids I had never seen before. So why are you doing this? So it was like, oh, well, I guess I gotta come up with an explanation. But it was amazing at Chestnut Hill is a small liberal arts school. It would remind me of kind of the Bellarmine College Project at Fairfield. It serves, it was once an all girls school and really served that purpose for a long time. And then the needs changed. And so now it's co-ed, but the kids who I had worked with in the parish in the inner city were the exact same kids who were on my couch. Really, like Priscilla Lugo was the same kid on my couch four years later, our paths crossed again. And so it was a great blessing to be able to work with them and to learn together. I learned what it meant to be a sister St. Joseph doing that work. Wow, wow, wow. Did you imagine that you would stay working in that area or how do things work? How did the sisters, how do you and the sisters decide what comes next? Yeah, so it's usually a mutual discernment. But in our, we call it like temporary profession. So at that point, every year you say, I wanna do this again. And I have married friends who say to me, maybe marriage should work that way. You get married and then after the first year you're renew again. So temporary. You sign up again for another year. Yeah, sign up again. Like, did this work? Like, does this make sense? Cause we're constantly assessing and in our prayer life saying, God, you know, God, is this where I'm meant to be? Am I finding life here? How are you calling me? And so typically during that time, which can be three to six years usually, our congregation likes people to have two ministry experiences. So I knew going into Chestnut Hill that I would only be there for a certain amount of time. But I mean, those kids, the students, those young people still, you know, I get texts, you know, bi-weekly from some of them. Some of them we have set phone conversations. So those relationships were integral to who they became and who I've become. And so after I was at Chestnut Hill, the congregation, so we're based out of Philadelphia, but our congregation spans from Northern New Jersey down to, you know, Georgia, Florida. And so the city of Camden, Camden, New Jersey, our sisters have been there for 130 years. And so they wanted to, our congregation wanted to found a ministry there. Our sisters had always been in the schools teaching. They had run the Catholic schools in the city of Camden, deeply important city. At one point was per capita, the murder capital of the United States. And they say, you know, we wanna start a ministry here. And so I was invited to consider going to help found what's called the Sisters of St. Joseph Neighborhood Center, the SSJNC. And so myself and another sister, like our first sisters, our first sisters when they were called together by this Jesuit, he sent them out. He said, you know, divide the city and then circle it with love. Everybody take, there were six of them. Divide the city and circle it with love. Exactly, there were six of them. And he said, everybody gets a spot, everybody take a part, go out during the day, do the work and then come back and we'll talk about it and process it. And so myself and sister Bonnie, you know, we went to Camden and she had been in the diocese of Camden for many years and I had been in the inner city of Philadelphia. And they said, you know, go out and figure out what the needs are. And so we walked the streets of Camden, we had to find a place to start this neighborhood center. And then we had to ask people, say to people, if you could do anything for your neighborhood, what would you do? And, you know, the initial reaction from folks, a lot of immigrants from Latin and South Central America, they looked at us like we were crazy. We said, no, no, really, if you could do anything, what would you do? And they started naming needs. You know, we really like to learn English. We'd like, you know, job counseling. We need help with food. There's so much food insecurity in the area. We'd love to have a community garden. We said, oh, that's great. And then we said, you know, before we leave you, do you wanna sign up to help us do that? Because we're not here to do it on our own. Yeah, and that, because that model doesn't work. That model of going into a community and saying, you know, let us do all these great things for you. Doesn't work. What works is let's partner together because this is your community. I recognize that I'm an outsider to this community. So how can we share in life together? But how can we provide for your community? So that ultimately this ministry is not our ministry or a ministry of the Sisters of St. Joseph. It's a ministry of the neighborhood. And that's, we say in our mission statement, we said, you know, we're about connecting neighbors to neighbors and neighborhoods to neighborhoods. So then connecting other communities. I mean, we've had all sorts of communities come in and we say it's about building relationships and how that can change the world if we get to know one another. I wanna stop just for a second questions, comments before we go any further. Oh, let's see. Okay. Oh, wait, there's a question here in the chat. Tom, Tom Feranda, sorry, I didn't answer it earlier. He wants to know what position I played rugby. Tom, it's important. These are important things. You won't hear anywhere else. I started out in the second row because I had no clue what I was doing. And so I was a bruiser in the second row. And then eventually I moved to eight man, which I love. That was a much better. There were no more black guys. My mother was very appreciative of that. You kept all your teeth. Oh, I was one of my noted history things. I was the first woman's player to wear a scrum cap after I got a concussion. I said, I can only keep playing if I wear some sort of protection. Colleen, I actually had a Fairfield rugby woman intern three years ago who played second row and number eight. Her name is Eleanor Sikowski. I had dinner with her a couple of weeks ago. Very nice girl. So we know second rows turn out tough and dedicated. So that's wonderful. Oh, I love it, Tom. Thank you, Tom. It must have been very tough then for you Colleen to decide that you would go to studies. I know that we've talked about you're going to BC and you're studying what you call practical theology. And I know from following your writings that you've been very involved in the process of the synod, a term that is bandied about a fair amount. But I'm not sure, depending upon where people are in their parishes or their diocese, whether folks have had much of an opportunity to see both the promise and the challenge of the synod and synodality. But since you're really there at BC, at the heart, I think, of the American response and that you've been so involved, I wonder whether this is a slight deviation, but really not taking you away from your story. Because your story is so much the story of youth and women assuming a voice and assuming leadership and calling the church to grow in the directions that it should be. Could you say something about what your experience at Boston College is like and what your work and your observations with the American contribution to the synod? So I'm just laying that question out and please take it in the direction that you think would be appropriate. Yeah, I think a question that I often get is what gives you hope or why would you want to be a woman in the church? As a vowed woman religious, I am a woman who has vowed my life to God, but lived in a particular way in the church. And I think the synodal process, thinking of the church as a body, a body of people who are on a journey, who need to be listening to one another and listening to the Holy Spirit, that's what gives me hope. And so as I think about like where I am now and leaving, I left a very synodal place. That neighborhood center was doing the work of listening to people and having conversations, having difficult conversations, but saying, what do we need in the church? And I think I would encourage anyone to look at the synod right now. The pope has really extended it out and he said, we need to open wide or enlarge our tent, this line from scripture. We need to make more room so that everybody has a space in the church. And so that means listening. And I've been amazed. I went into the synodal process here in Boston. I have to say, it was a little cynical. I went into it and I thought, we're just gonna hear the same old stuff and it's gonna be, there's no hope that women's voices are gonna get through or the LGBTQ voices are gonna get through or people who have essentially left the church that their voices are gonna get through. And so I was really heartened by the experience of being in conversation with people who are studying theology, but then everyday people to hear their takes on. I really think that there's this conversation about women deacons, the ordination of women to the deaconate right now, the permanent deaconate and saying like hearing that, but then not just hearing it in these sessions and saying like, oh, that's an American thing. Americans are concerned with X, Y and Z or LGBTQ inclusion in the church. Americans are concerned with that. But if you go to Africa or Southeast Asia those aren't concerns there. This document came out at the end of last year that's called the Continental Document and it combines voices from all over the world. And what we found is that there are echoes of the same concerned in all different places. They take on the flavor of the local area, but in Bangladesh, they're saying we wanna hear women preach. And in sub-Saharan Africa, they're saying, women are the people who are running our churches. They're the people who pass on the faith. It's your mother and your grandmother who you get the faith from. And men need to be more responsible in helping cultivate that in the family. But we also need women in leadership positions. And so I think like that has really given me a lot of hope about the Senate because I think people are listening. Are listening to the Senate. When you say the Senate, just to be clear, Colleen, would you, where is all this leading? What is the Senate? Yeah. So it's a process, it's a synodal process. So on the local level, there have been listening sessions. So they basically say to people, everyday people, you know. Are you sure your diocese is supposed to be? Your diocese is supposed to be? Or are other organizations? So we can look up the future church, voice of the faithful, discerning deacons. There are a whole number of virtual organizations that have been holding listening sessions. And so there are conversations happening about, what has pained you in the church? What gives you joy? What is your vision? What do you think the spirit is calling for? Not just what's your vision, but what is the Holy Spirit inviting us to? In this moment for the church to be alive and to be really living out the gospel, the good news, the gospel call. And so that's happened on the local level and now it's kind of going up a level to now the continents, all the continents in the world are kind of synthesizing their information and listening. And so eventually what will happen this October, a group will gather in Rome, bishops, lay people, representatives, and they'll bring all of that information together to have a larger conversation. And the Pope has said, it's not gonna end right there. It's gonna continue. He's added another year on to it, but it's really about how are we journeying together? How are we listening? And how are we implementing this? Not just, you know, oftentimes people can say a lot. We can have big dreams, but like where does the rubber hit the road? How do we actually implement this on the ground? And that's not an easy thing. And it's not a quick process. The church moves very slowly, but I think there's hope. There's hope because people are hearing, reflected back to them or echoed back to them, their own, you know, opinions about the church, but they're hearing it from other people. Oh, and you sound very, I mean, you're a smart woman, you've been around the block, but you sound hopeful, you know? I know, I'm amazed myself. Right, you sound remarkably hopeful, I have to say. I mean, it really is hopeful. I mean, there's a lot of things in the church, and there's a lot of things in the world that are not necessarily hopeful, but this is a thing I think when I look at it, I think, oh, this is when you look at the early church, this is what they were doing. This is when, you know, the Acts of the Apostles, if you read that, you know, they were all together, they shared all things in common, they were voicing their opinions and trying to figure out what does it mean to be a church? And so that's what's happening. I see it in some ways now. Now, it's not perfect. It is not a perfect process, but the fact that even, you know, that those voices come through, if you go to paragraph 65, it's the section on women in the Continental document, it is amazing. It made me, it gave me goosebumps when I read it because I thought, oh, I thought I, I thought me and my sisters were the only people who thought this, but no, people around the world are thinking this. Colin, just for the sake of folks who were listening, if you go on to the USCCB, US Conference of Catholic Bishops and look up Synod, you can get the concluding document. Colin, is that the one you're thinking of? Or is that a different? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, you can find that. And I think if you, not to plug my own work, but if you go to, if you search my name and Synod, you'll find an article that I wrote. There you go. The National Catholic Report, which has embedded links that you can click on for all of these different things. So we're almost done. I want to make sure that we save some time for more questions, discussion, please. This is your opportunity. Ask a sister, anything you want, I'll answer. Ask sister, anything. All the things you were always wanting to ask sister. I don't want to banalize it, but Colin is an exceptional example of an intelligent, faith-filled woman who says in the face of so many contradictions, I still stand here. And I believe that God is calling me to this vocation and to this form of witness. Colin, I think Colin, do you have a question? Yeah, Jocelyn, do you want to voice that question? Jocelyn, I'm sorry, go ahead Jocelyn. Sure, I wasn't sure if I should raise my hand. Thank you so much. I am just curious if you want to share what you're holding on to from Fairfield and what you've learned. And I know there's a million things and that's a hard question, but as someone who went to Fairfield and worked there for five years, I certainly, it's always going to be a part of me and I'm just curious what you'd like to share with us. Well, that's a great question, Jocelyn. Thank you, Jocelyn. Yeah, what's the most important thing I learned at Fairfield? What's the thing that has stuck with me? I think a piece of what I learned at Fairfield is I learned a big piece of who I am at Fairfield, which I mean is not, you can't promise that to people, but I think I learned at Fairfield that if you show up, like if you show up to do the work, then there will be movement within you and you will discover things that you never thought you would discover and that that is not just about you, it's about going out into the world. Like I think to be people for others, men and women for others, like that was instilled in me at Fairfield. And I was taught to ask questions, like that, as Jerry said, like I'm hopeful, it is not cheap hope, it is not cheap grace, like it is, I was taught by all of those professors I mentioned to ask critical questions and to hold my own feet to the fire but to hold the feet of institutions to the fire and say, you know, things aren't right. There are things that aren't right in the world. So how do we work for justice? How do we work for hope? Yeah. Wow, thank you. Thank you. Let's see. Looks like we've got Carolyn is asking, can you choose one thing that you do that brings you the deepest joy? Probably also another tough question in there now. Oh, one thing that brings me the deepest joy, as right now as a student, it's really a privileged position to be in, to be able to study in, but one of my greatest joys is that I get to be, I get to be in the classroom with other people and share in community life in a different way. I'm living with sisters, but I'm studying side by side with Jesuits who are in formation, with lay people who are saying, I wanna do this with my life. I think being able to witness to them becoming better ministers and how they make me a better minister in the process, like that brings me great joy. There's a alum, alumni from Fairfield who's in one of my classes and the first day we met each other, she had a Fairfield sweatshirt on. She said, I said, oh, you went to Fairfield? She said, yeah, I did. She said, oh, did you? I said, yeah, she said, oh, well, maybe we know the same people. I said, oh, well, when did you graduate? She said, oh, I graduated in 2019. I said, oh, I graduated in 2009, 10 years before you. We might know some of the same people, but I think it's being with younger people, older people, all sorts of people and sharing in the joys of everyday life. I made my final vows in 2019 in September. And so I let that slip at some point in one of my classes. I said, today, September 15th is my anniversary. It's my anniversary of vows. Well, the people in my class were like, we have to go out and celebrate your anniversary. We went out for ice cream, but I think just to be able to be able to witness to this life brings me joy, but to be able to share this life, to say like, it's not my own. You know, that was not about saying, this is what a sister is. It was about being together and sharing ice cream and laughing and just having fun and not having to talk about theology or the synodal process or any of that, but to say, oh, you know, what's giving you hope right now? What's bringing you joy? So that's what brings me joy these days. I noticed, thank you, Colleen. I noticed as I have flipped through the participants that we have a number of Sisters of St. Joseph and we have a number of people who have been involved in the Murphy Center for Ignatian Spirituality here at Fairfield. Idiosyncratically, I acknowledged in my own life my debt of gratitude to the Sisters of St. Joseph. I would be really unjust if I didn't acknowledge that our own experience now and the power of Ignatian Spirituality at Fairfield was strengthened and undergirded by the work of Sister Karen Doyle. Sister Karen Doyle worked with Father Jim Bowler in the very beginnings of establishing the formation program for spiritual directors. So Karen Doyle trekked up here every month from Chestnut Hill, giving classes to our interns and then offering programs on Sundays to teach people how to become supervisors, to teach people how to become, to give the 19th annotation. And I told Karen Doyle the truth that I worked with Karen in every element of this and I did it really not because I was being valiant, but because I learned from her every time I was with her. And so Karen, I don't know whether you're listening, but those of you who do know Karen, please tell her that her contribution, her enduring gift to Fairfield University is celebrated this evening when we celebrate her young sister, Colleen Gibson. So thank you Colleen, thank you everyone who's taken the time to participate in this exchange, which I think thanks to you Colleen and the witness of your own life, your integrity and your courage and your candor has given us all hope and inspiration for us to live our lives with one desire only to be always what God wants us to be. Thank you so much Colleen. Thank you so much, Jerry. I mean, it's really, it's been a blessing to be here and I always give credit to my experience at Fairfield. It taught me how to pray, it helped me grow my relationship with God. I would not be the person I am today without my life at Fairfield. So I give thanks for it every day for the Jesuits who I met, the Ignatian spiritual audio was introduced to the opportunity to do the 19th annotation of the exercises while I was at Fairfield. All of those things have contributed to who I am and I carry, you know, the same way that I carry the people from Camden with me everywhere that I go, I carry the relationships that I made at Fairfield with me and whether I recall people by name in my mind or I just recall them in heart. It's often been graces when I'm on retreat that people from those four years pop up in my heart and so they're remembered lovingly and they're still forming me, you know? I think of Patricia Brennan who was at the, who did a lot of spirituality of happy memory, you know? Often I often say, you know, what would Patricia do? What would, you know, X, Y, what would this professor tell me to do in this moment? So thank you so much for having me and thank you everyone for coming. It's been a gift to be able to share and I'm looking forward. I see that the chat keeps going. I'm looking forward to looking through the chat. I'm sorry if we didn't get to your questions. Thank you everyone. Thank you so much, Colleen. And I see a lot of links being shared in there and I was actually going to ask Colleen's permission to share some of that. We will be sending a follow-up email with a link to the recording. So if you know anybody who was unable to tune in tonight and would like to do so, we'll be sending that in the next few days and I'll make sure we include links to Colleen's article that she referenced, information about her podcast and all of that. Stay tuned. Our next event in this series is on Monday, April 24th. So more information will be going out about that soon and thank you all again and have a wonderful rest of the night.