Living & Learning

sister marguerite stewart reflects on
her greatest lessons and influences

Sister Marguerite Stewart finds herself in very comfortable place these days, 70 years into her religious life. The comfort is both a physical and spiritual one, as her most meaningful work is done from one of two welcoming armchairs positioned facing each other and just a few feet apart. She’s created an inviting nook where she meets privately with those who seek her out as their spiritual director at St. Francis Center for Renewal in Bethlehem, Pa.

A storied career has brought her here from her childhood years in Westfield, Mass. She remembers not being particularly thrilled to learn as a seventh or eighth-grader that three members of the School Sisters of St. Francis would be coming to serve at St. Peter Church there. But it didn’t take long for them to grow on her, especially Sister Annunciata Youhas, who shared young Ruth’s love of music.

“I admired them long before I had any aspirations of joining them,” Sister remembers. “I loved music. Sister Annunciata played the organ and led the choir. I would watch her. Later she gave me piano lessons, and I became more connected to her, and I liked what I saw.”

The seeds of Ruth’s religious calling were planted, but her family encouraged her to finish high school and then go to the convent. “It was important to finish high school and be a normal teenager,” she says of her days at St. Mary High School in Westfield. “I was very involved in high school, in cheerleading and music, and it helped me grow up.”

After entering the community in 1950, the superiors asked young Ruth what she wanted to study. The options were relatively limited, as most young Sisters were expected to go into education or nursing. “I wanted to study music,” she remembers. Her superior took it under advisement, but soon after making first vows in August 1951 and receiving the name Sister Marguerite, she was dispatched to San Antonio, Texas, where she taught at St. Joseph School until 1958.

“I enjoyed being in Texas,” she says of her time there. “I loved the children and, when it was time to leave, I found it difficult.” Some of those earliest students still keep in touch even today.

Sister was also deeply influenced in her earliest ministries by the quite leadership of Sister Ludmilla Gelak, who served as a domestic Sister in convents in Pennsylvania and New Jersey. “She was so gentle and so kind and had such wisdom in her simplicity,” Sister Marguerite remembers. “She taught me so much just by being who she was.”

After earning a bachelor’s degree in education from Mount Mercy College (now Carlow University), Sister Marguerite eventually did get to study music at Manhattanville College in New York, laying the groundwork for her 17 years as a music teacher at St. Francis Academy in Bethlehem, Pa. She initiated the school’s first musical, starting from scratch and organizing the students for a successful staging of My Fair Lady. “If they only knew,” she says of hiding her own fears and frights from those first casts and audiences. But, together, they pulled it off. A tradition was begun, and many other musicals followed, as did the annual Christmas Vespers that continue today.

She grew as a teacher and leader during those years at SFA and was elected provincial minister of the Bethlehem Province in 1982 and, later, vicar general of the international community in 1989.

“Serving in Rome for 12 years was a life-changing experience for me. As director of formation, I traveled to wherever our young sisters were,” she says. Sister Marguerite also traveled to India 20 times alone. “Adjusting to climate and languages was a challenge, but I learned so much and I grew, especially spiritually,” she says.

Those many visits and the hand she had in formation of the younger Sisters rank among her most precious experiences. “Seeing the young Sisters in India and Slovakia, I wonder if they did more for me than I did for them. I was humbled that they were so open and honest with me.”

The impact of those years is overshadowed only by the retreat work that has been her focus since 2002. She is fulfilled daily by her current role as a spiritual director to 21 people — “a great variety of folks.”

“It’s a very valuable process to see people open up and grow,” she says. “It helps them and me to build a closer relationship with God.”

Her traveling days are likely over, and she’s okay with that. “Places don’t mean that much to me. People do.”

While she’s deeply connected with the people to whom she ministers, she’s also still nurturing her own relationship with God. “I’m still not there. I’m still a work in progress,” she says. “I try to spend time in prayer every day, short periods throughout the day. I try to not let a day go by that I don’t do good reading. And there’s always someone with whom to talk about something of a spiritual nature.”

Seventy years on, she can still relate to her younger self, stirred then and now by music and a sense of service. “I’ve enjoyed building relationships and being open to taking risks. I wasn’t always the greatest of risk-takers,” she says of her own personal journey. “Relying on God along the way, I’ve learned to accept success, but also failure.”

Sister considers herself to be gentle, kind, open and still curious. “And I want to stay that way,” she says. “I’m an introvert but also courageous. I think of the many times I went to India all by myself.”

Music still moves her, as she relaxes by playing the keyboard at St. Francis Center for Renewal, where she never fails to include music in her presentations and prayer services. Drawing, painting and adult coloring books also provide outlets for her creativity.

She turned 90 in June, and her legs move a little slower these days. But she’s far from done. “I want to keep going,” she says. “I’ll know when I can’t do it anymore.”