- June 15, 2022 Sister Stories, Community
By Sister Mary Flick
When Mother St. John Fontbonne appears at a celebration or workshop, people take notice. Mother St. John, who in 1808 refounded the Sisters of St. Joseph after the French Revolution, appears dressed in black serge from head to toe, with a rosary around her waist and a crucifix around her neck. Although she is an image from the past, her message carries a timely relevance and a timeless sense of the Divine.
“Keep a clear focus, for God’s sake,” she says to today’s audience. “Don’t let confusion and chaos in the world muddy your vision. You’re about Jesus Christ. You’re about the mission. You’re about joining others on their journey.“
Mother St. John she speaks today through Sister Donna Gunn. For the past 30 years, Sister Donna has brought to life this pivotal figure in CSJ history.
Little did she know this was a ministry in the making when she studied theater, earning both bachelor’s and master’s degrees in the field. Sister Donna inherited the acting “bug” from her parents who spent a summer traveling with the Chautauqua Tent Shows, a band of performers in the 1920s and ‘30s who traveled with their own tents to perform in rural America.
For Sister Donna, Mother St. John is more than an act. “There is something about being immersed in the other. It requires being able to become the other and trying to see from her point of view,” she says. “I do not consider this a performance … Mother St. John is here.”
Sister Donna prepares for her appearances, not by memorizing lines, but by sitting and praying. She says, “I ask Mother, ‘Well, where will we go with this?’ “I ask her to help people to hear what they need to hear.”
And what is it that people need to hear from Mother St. John today?
“To me, we would not be CSJs without our connection to the laity,” Sister Donna says. “Mother invited lay women into the convent before the French Revolution. As they sewed clothes for the poor, she would read prayer for the women who were illiterate, and teach them about the gospel and the church.
“If not for Mother’s partnership with the lay woman, the Countess de la Rochjacquelin, we would not have come to America.” The Countess, a friend of Mother’s, paid for the sisters’ travel from Lyon to St. Louis in 1836.
Mother St. John also teaches us a lesson about having the courage let go for the sake of the mission. “Even that tie to those first six sisters who came to the United States … she was willing to let go and allow them to become an American congregation so they would be more relevant in this setting.
“As we look at the future of religious life, I believe there has to be an openness to letting go so we can be more effective and relevant,” she says. “We pray for the courage to let go and become something new .”
Over the years Sister Donna has brought Mother St. John’s message far and wide to groups such as the U.S. and Canadian federations of the Sisters of St. Joseph, to the Congregation of St. Joseph, to associate gatherings and to various gatherings at CSJ-institutions.
What keeps her going after all this time? “Invitations!” she says. “Mother never says no to an invitation,” Sister Donna says on her behalf. “If Mother can be there, she will be there!”