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FOREWORD

In her portrayal of the life of Sister Catherine Donnelly, founder of the Sisters of Service, author Jeanne Beck has succeeded in weaving a tapestry rich in texture, broad in scope and deeply revealing of the character of a memorable Canadian woman. To a remarkable degree the thematic details of Sr. Catherine’s life and times, 1884-1983, reflect those of her country and church. These details cluster around a unifying triad consisting of her sense of space, mission and self.

In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries Canadian energies focused on twin developments: the movement from dominantly rural to urban populations and pursuits, and the exploitation of the vast expanses of the West. The tasks associated with incorporating millions of immigrants included assisting with the multiple adaptations to foreign cultural, linguistic, educational, technological and political expressions. All of this in a time before social workers, or the array of government-assisted social programmes, which would develop later in the century.

Catherine was born shortly after the First Council of the Vatican (1870) and lived well beyond the Second (1962-1965). Until the Second Vatican Council the dominant model of religious life experienced and expressed by Roman Catholic communities of women in Canada was the monastic model. It is important to recognize the normative dominance of this model of religious life in order to appreciate the myriad of difficulties she experienced in proposing to pioneer the implementation of a novel and opposing approach to service which her missionary vision entailed.

In the preceding century the Catholic Church had responded to the increasing challenges of the secularized and materialist world view promoted by Enlightenment philosophies and hostile political agendas. The highly centralized and rationalized re-structuring of the Church which resulted, succeeded in providing clear identity and focused direction. But this was at the expense of developing a non-traditional character which tended to be defensive, reactive and hostile in turn towards innovation in general. This was particularly so with regard to alterations in the form and function of women’s communities.

This ecclesial conservatism was reinforced by cultural expectations resistant to the emergence of women from private sphere to public space, at least through the first half of the century. In fact, taking into account both ecclesial experience and cultural expectation, hindsight suggests that Catherine’s success in winning acceptance, or at least toleration, of adaptations with regard to such things as habit, residence and form of ministry, are really remarkable. Such contextualization should not underrate the immediacy and depth of successive painful passages and personal humiliations. It should, however, validate the clarity of her vision with regard to the needs of the mission, and highlight the resilient sense of self which sustained that vision in the face of challenges from landscape, religious institution and social convention.

The biography is refreshingly candid with regard to conflicts and tensions internal to character, institution and her own religious community. The treatment is both sensitive and critical throughout and the result is a three-dimensional life, personal in detail and instructive with regard to the true measure of its subject: a woman sacramentally rooted in time and place and deeply moved by a vision of service and human care founded on the love of her God.

Brian F. Hogan, C.S.B.

Dean, Faculty of Theology

University of St. Michael’s College

Toronto, Ontario