Newspaper Page Text
The Southern Cross, Page 6
Thursday, December 23, 1999
Left: The children of Our Lady of Lourdes, Port Wentworth, use their dramatic and musical talents to retell the Christmas story at a
Christmas pageant held on December 12. Inset: A prayerful sheep.
Right: The children of Notre Dame Academy, Savannah, demonstrate their abilites at their Christmas tableau on December 16.
Photos by Jonas N. Jordan
Christmas pageant brings out talents
Sister Pauline
Sister Pauline prepares for her day with prayer.
(Continued from page 1)
over the past three decades, but the
Catholic church she serves also has
seen great changes.
She may be uniquely qualified for
what she is'doing, said Fred Foster,
recently retired director of Chatham
County’s Department of Family and
Children Services and a long-time
friend. “She’s just Sister Pauline,”
Foster said. “She’s nothing fancy, but
a real committed person.”
Foster spent 34 years with the
social service agency—the last three
as director—before he retired this
year. Fie is now a volunteer at the
Social Apostolate, where he well
knows the population served there.
“I told them (Catholic officials)—
they would strike gold,” Foster said
of recommending Sister Pauline for
the job. “She’s the kind of person
who’s hard to say no to.”
Foster, who met Sister Pauline in
1972 when she first was in Savannah
teaching at Saint Mary’s Catholic
School, said her strengths are “proba
bly her drive and determination, her
ability to get things done.”
Foster and his wife, Zeline, kept in
touch with Sister Pauline after she
left Savannah. “She, I think, has a
real feel for the problem,” Foster
said. “But more important, a feel for
the people she serves.”
The Social Apostolate “is really a
community response to poverty,” said
Foster. “This place gives hope. You
can’t measure it in the number of
meals they serve in the soup kitchen
or the number of clothes they provide
in the thrift shop. I think it’s much
more.”
Sister Pauline deals with life on
simple terms—renewing her vows
each day and striving daily to live a
balanced life.
Up daily at 5:00 a.m., she spends
an hour in prayer in a small chapel at
the somewhat spare convent. Then a
40-minute walk and Mass daily
before heading to the mission. There,
she finds respite in short doses.
For 20 minutes each day, she and
Mary O’Brien, her assistant and con
fidant, flee to the office for a quiet
lunch from the soup kitchen. A cup
of Irish tea about 4:00 p.m. is her
reward for a day’s labor.
Keeping her focus narrow enables
her to have fun, she said. “The great
est daily challenge is to respond to
people, rather than react to people,”
she said. “The bottom line is it’s not
our work. It’s God’s work.
“Why can’t we have fun here? We
have a lot of fun, real fun,” said Sister
Pauline. “The secret of being always
joyful is being grateful and I learned a
lot about gratitude.” Do not mistake
her simplicity as a sign of weakness,
however. Sister Pauline knows her
mission and responsibility. “I am not
afraid of that challenge,” she said.
She hesitates, explaining that the
Franciscan way is to proceed quietly,
rather than shout from the rooftop.
But, in plain point of fact, Sister
Pauline is the director and to her falls
the final word in the operation.
“I don’t know what the future will
be, but the future is not my focus,”
she said. “That’s the lesson of Sister
Mary Therese. She left here one
Friday and never returned.”
It is not always easy. She under
stands that with the people she serves,
the likelihood of overcoming the
social issues they present is more a
dream than a reality. “I’m not so naive
to think that within a year or so all
will be hunky-dory for the poor,” she
said. “I can be something for the long
haul and I can be part of the struggle.
“What we do here is just not the
responsibility of the Social Apostolate
or Union Mission. It is the responsi
bility of the entire city. I’m willing to
throw my lot in, everything I’ve got.”
She also understands that for the
folks she serves, success is not
always apparent. “Success is not the
prize,” Sister Pauline said. “A lot of
what goes on here is not successful in
the eyes of the world. We work
toward individual success stories.”
sg While Sister Pauline understands that
2 her flock may stumble and fall, she has
g 5 little patience with petty attitudes that
| sometimes surface. One woman erupt-
5 ed, upset at the response she got from
g staff at the center, loudly claiming she
o had been disrespected. “We don’t
£ accept attitudes here,” she said. “She
e" was out of control. She did not want to
D
JE listen. That I have no time for. That’s a
E different story.”
^ Sister Pauline and her staff fit a lot of
people and their problems into a very
2 limited area. All must be done within
o
£ four days a week. There is little wiggle
room for wasted time and energy.
She marvels at the calm that pre
vails here, despite the troubled lives
of most of her clients “It’s amazing
how people can come together here,”
she said. “We don’t know where
they’ve been the night before.”
Nor will they know if people com
ing to the mission have taken a drink
that day to make them feel good, or
perhaps are off their medication.
As Foster says, she remains upbeat.
“I’ll be happy if the Social
Apostolate gives some hope, some
courage each day,” she said.
“I think what impresses people is
we gradually realize that there’s won
derful people on both sides of the
table,” Sister Pauline said. “I think
the challenge is for us to learn from
each other. I think we have a lot to
learn and I continue to learn myself.”
This is the second of a two-part
series on the social apostolate.
Reprinted with the permission of the
Savannah Morning News.