Music continues to unite Ursuline Sisters to God

Music in any ministry

Regardless of their ministry, Ursuline Sisters often find ways to incorporate music.

“In Hispanic ministry, music is very important,” said Sister Fran Wilhelm, who leads Centro Latino in Owensboro. “Because the great majority of our people have had little education, a well-chosen song can sometimes teach an entire subject.”

“My first three missions were based on parishes’ needs for an organist,” said Sister Cecelia Joseph Olinger. “My fourth mission, St. Romuald in Hardinsburg, Ky., had no music ministry connected with it, but that’s where I began to love making music, especially with kids. Sister Marie Carol (Cecil) had given them a marvelous foundation in the primary grades, and by the time they got to me, they could sing in two parts. We even did a half-hour program of Christmas songs for the local radio station, most of them in two parts. From then on, I was involved in music in every parish or school I served, always on a voluntary basis.”

In 1984, Sister Cecilia Joseph began to play the guitar. That led her to teach children to play an instrument wherever she served.

“I’ve taught guitar, recorder and color-coded bells,” she said. “At St. Anthony School in Zuni, N.M., I also worked with the children to lead the responsorial psalm and Alleluia and to use the drum with some music.” Sister Cecelia Joseph now ministers to three parishes in Missouri.

Guitar Masses were new in the 1960s when Sister Joan Riedley entered the Ursulines, but she has spent 48 years playing guitar and leading the singing at Mass.

“I’ve taught about 25 children how to play and when they were ready I’d invite them to join me in playing at the school Mass,” Sister Joan said. “I’ve played guitar at Indian pueblos in New Mexico. I’ve led the music in Teens Encounter Christ, Vacation Bible Schools and Camp Renewals.”

Music has almost always been a part of Sister Ruth’s ministry. During her first eight years on mission, she taught in elementary and middle schools that all included serving as choir director and organist for the children’s choir.

“On my first mission, in rural Nebraska, the large church was not heated in the winter, so the children’s Mass was celebrated around a kerosene stove in a basement chapel,” she said. “There I learned to play a little old pump organ, which was so fragile that one of the pedals occasionally fell off, leaving me to struggle through with one foot.”

She stayed involved in music during her years on the faculty at Brescia College and at St. Meinrad (Ind.) College. She returned to the Mount this year after serving six years at Casa Ursulina in Chile, where one of her joys was a “coro,” a group of women who love music as much as she does.

“I taught them some songs in English and a couple in Latin … they taught me multitudes of wonderful Chilean folksongs,” Sister Ruth said. “Periodically we sang for the liturgy in our little mission church. These were poor women with lots of problems, but all the problems seemed to fade into the background during our happy time of sharing music together.”

Sister Rosemary incorporated music at every school in which she taught and played the organ at different parishes in Nebraska where she taught adult religious education. From 1969-76 and again from 1980-82 she taught at the Academy, where she learned the organ and the flute as a student. Her last two years there, she and Sister Catherine Marie Lauterwasser revived their high school instruments (clarinet and flute) and played some duets. Sister Mary Durr entrusted Sister Rosemary with the flute she’d learned on, bought in the 1920s, and Sister Rosemary was able to take it with her to ministries in Chile and Bolivia to play for liturgies there.

“Since 1984 I’ve played the flute on special occasions at the Mount and with our choirs at Centro Latino,” Sister Rosemary said, who plays the flute each year at the Mount during Alumnae Weekend.

The next generation of musicians and music teachers has helped to continue the Ursuline tradition and helped Catholics evolve in liturgical music. Those sisters include Sister Mary Durr, Sister Eileen Howard, Sister Catherine Marie, Sister Rita Lavigne, Sister Kathleen Dueber, Sister Maureen Griner and Sister Mary Henning, who retired in 2013 after 30 years as an associate professor of music at Brescia University and is now Director of Worship and Liturgy at the Mount.

Sister Eileen said when she entered the novitiate in 1948, she was brought more deeply into the experience of the union of music as prayer.

“With large numbers in the novitiate and regularly scheduled choir practices, we had well-trained choirs not to be equaled in later years,” she said.

The changes brought about by the Second Vatican Council led to an exodus of many sisters and thus the end of the larger choirs, Sister Eileen said. Folk Masses with guitars tended to replace many “choral treasures” in sacred music, she said.

“Church musicians have worked tirelessly since Vatican II to create new forms of music worthy of our worshiping communities,” she said. “We at the Mount have accepted the challenge of changes in the Mass. We can see a new and greater depth of church music emerging with choirs, song leaders and congregation taking their rightful place at worship.”

By Dan Heckel