"
I just knew I wanted to do
everything that
had to do
with God ." ( Sr. Faustina
Ferko )
By Robert R. Schwarz
She
is 35 but looks years younger. She
stands five-foot-seven , has brown hair and smiling blue-green eyes and a cheerful disposition , and she prays several times during the day
and evening. She likes hamburgers
without a bun , guitar playing , making pottery , and cycling along the Lake Michigan shoreline.
Et cetera, et cetera. You could call Sr.
Faustina Ferko a kind of Catholic
Renaissance woman but
you'd have to expand that definition to include mountain climbing. She's
hiked up Pike's Peak twice and, during
one ascent when pelted with hail, rain, and snow and seeing flashes of lightning , she thought she was
going to die.
" I was
praying and asking Jesus to lead my steps ," she said during our
interview. Whenever she mentioned "Jesus" , she intoned His name as if
He were a beloved neighbor of hers whom
she had known for a long time.
As
was to be expected when Sr. Faustina Ferko was hired as the new director of
youth ministry at St. James Catholic
church in Arlington Heights , Illinois, she came with a devotion to Jesus and also to those
conversion moments with students she
calls "God moments. " During our hour together, she recalled one of
those special moments when a novice stationed
at a Philadelphia high school : It was in a chapel there after an " adoration " service of prayers and singing for freshmen . "Everybody was getting up to leave
except for a girl who remained kneeling ," Sr. Faustina said. " I
asked her if she was okay , and she said ' yes , but I don't want to go. ' It
was like she was saying this is God
and I don't want to leave Him . For this girl , it was a beautiful moment. "
continuing : "That was the beginning [ of a
conversion] for that young lady , and for it to
happen at her age is so important . In that
moment they understand how much God loves
them. The younger these children can take hold
of the realization that God is real and that He
wants a relationship with them, the better. " She related with exuberance all this to her ministry at
St. James by emphasizing the importance having a " good atmosphere for the students to encounter
Christ." Sr. Faustina has "high expectations" for the program she is developing at St. James to get
adult volunteers to teach religious education to 9 th through 12th grade students , whether they have been confirmed or not. "I think a lot of parents are looking for ways to better plug our teens into this parish. "
I
asked her what she would like people to say about her at her funeral . Her
prompt reply: "I saw Jesus in her."
Why
and How She Became a Religious Sister
How did it all
begin for her ? " The beginning
seed was planted in my heart at age eight at a 2 ½ –hour charismatic
Mass," she said. " It was very
engaging. " Then I attended a seminar where I learned about gifts of the
Holy Spirit. At the end, people pray over you. When they prayed over me, I felt
my heart and His heart became one. At that age I didn't know what that
meant. I just knew I wanted to do everything
that had to do with God . I
realized that as I got older, my heart was so big and full of so much love
that I wanted to give it to more than just one person."
Then came four years
at Franciscan University at Steubenville, Ohio and a bachelor of arts degree in
theology. Now with a college debt to pay
off, Sr. Faustina spent the next ten
years working as a youth director at various levels and with various jobs to help pay off that debt . She
made rosaries, loaded trucks for United
Parcel Service, and answered telephones for a telemarketing agency. Today she
is a sister ( and resident ) of Holy Family of Nazareth in Des Plaines , an order formed in 1875 in Rome , which today
has 1,300 sisters—not nuns, who are
cloistered and whose vocation is primarily prayer. The order's work in its 13
countries focuses on helping families.
Asked if she ever had
any regrets about choosing a religious rather than a family life, Sr.
my first vows June 15. " We both laughed. "I'm kind of still in the honeymoon stage. I'm totally
blown away by all that God has given me in the last three months. So, I have no regrets. I always
knew I had a religious vocation in life but at the same time I knew that if God brought some
wonderful guy into my life I would be open to that . My mom was always saying 'I'm praying for
you to meet a nice Catholic man ." Again we shared a good laugh. Then she continued : "So, last
June 15 I told my mom 'thanks for praying for me into the arms of Jesus . You couldn't get a better
guy than that .' I wouldn't change my life decision now for anything, for I think God has given me
everything I've dreamed of , a great job and two great bosses [ Fr. Matt Foley, pastor, and JoAnne
Mullen-Muhr , director of faith
formation ] . "
Family Life
All of Sr. Faustina's
family lives in Erie, Pennsylvania . Her father is
retired from General Electric,
where he did manual labor on train parts for 35 years. " He always put the
family first, Sr. Faustina said. "If we needed a pair of shoes or pants,
he'd buy it for us before himself.
Thanks to the sacrifices of my father, I was able to attend Catholic schools all my life. He'd put everything on the back burner
to make sure that we got our Catholic education. " She has two brothers: Jamie, 41, a kitchen designer at a Lowe's
store , and Frankie, 43, an electrician
for Verizon.
And for
Recreation ?
With full-time youth ministry and rising at 5 a.m. for prayers, private adoration, and meditation
, and later, saying the Rosary
followed by afternoon and evening prayers , one wonders if there's any time—or energy—left for Sr.
Faustina's recreation. But there is.
Sometimes she sees a movie like "l2 Years a Slave" or
" Rise of the Planets of the Apes "—my grin at this title was noticeable, causing Sr. Faustina to
comment , "A Friend talked me into it. It really, though, was a decent
movie. "
And there are books:
" The Giver," which she thought fantastic, " The Hunger
Games, " The Gospel of Joy," by Pope Francis, and books by
Henri Nouwen. She exercises , which
includes long bike rides, like the
17-miles she pedaled last Labor Day
along Lake Michigan near Loyola University. What seems to delight her
most is "hanging" with her
sisters at the Des Plaines convent, where she'll play and sing her guitar for
them. "They are my community, " she said . " Spending time with
them is really important. "
 |
With two students at
a Catholic Heart work camp at
Detroit Lakes, Minnesota.
|
She paused for a long
moment to mull over a question about what makes
her sad. Finally, she said, "When something tragic happens like the beheading of that American journalist in
Iraq. It also made me angry. It also
makes me sad that a child dies from hunger every 20 seconds, and here I am with all this food around me and I
can't get it to them."
She was suddenly
reminded of the 24-hour hunger food
fast she is planning for all the parish high
school students . " It's a 24-hour lock-in ," she explained . "
They will drink water and juice and then end with a 5 p.m. Mass followed by a
feast of all their favorite foods their parents will bring. " Money will be donated for each hour the
students go without food and then given
to Catholic Relief Services.
We ended our conversation with one last question: Was there anything she had to learn the hard
way? What had been most challenging for her was being unable to see her parents during her
novitiate except for two weeks each year . Another challenge came quickly to mind: "Oh, yeah," she
mused, recalling her first days as a novice and how she was instructed to wash dirty dishes ( she still
does this ). " Correction is difficult when you're 30 years old and somebody is telling you how to do
something you've been doing well for years . She admitted that the real challenge was pride.
Comments are welcome
© 2014
Robert R. Schwarz
