Emmanuel Celebrates 16th Founders' Day
February 14, 2008
Sr. Katherine "Sissy" Corr, SND, executive director of Notre Dame Mission Volunteers - AmeriCorps, was the featured speaker at the College's 16th Founders' Day celebration on Thursday, February 7th. Sr. Sissy discussed " Mission in Action" during the event, which celebrates the foundress of the Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur, Saint Julie Billiart, and the founding mission of Emmanuel College.
During her address, Sr. Sissy delved into the challenges and obstacles faced by Saint Julie throughout her life, noting that her "confidence in the good God never wavered despite the hardships she faced." It was this faith that encouraged Sr. Sissy herself when confronted with the duty of structuring the Notre Dame Mission Volunteers program.
"I had Julie's confidence in God. I knew the program would thrive, I just did not know how," she said. "Then we came together with AmeriCorps. It was a match made in heaven."
Sr. Sissy has now been the executive director of the Notre Dame Mission Volunteers - AmeriCorps since 1994. Today, the service program is located in 15 cities across the United States and in Peru and Kenya. Its mission is to promote and encourage education, community empowerment, leadership development and multicultural harmony.
Three Emmanuel alums currently or previously involved with the program were also present for the Founders' Day celebration as part of an AmeriCorps panel. Professor of Sociology and Religious Studies and Director of the Center for Mission and Spirituality Sr. Mary Johnson, SND led the panel discussion, which included Kelli Chapin Kennedy, MD '97, who served with the program in Baltimore, Maryland from 1997-1998 and David Burawski '06, who is in his second year with a service site in Dorchester. A slide show depicting the experience of Sandra Nurse '06, currently serving in Kenya, was also presented along with a message from the recent alum.
During her address, Emmanuel College President Sister Janet Eisner, SND took the opportunity to recognize members of the Class of 2011 who were commemorating their first Founders' Day as Emmanuel students and just beginning to "experience the power of Emmanuel's educational mission" in their lives. She also paid tribute to Sister Dorothy Stang, SND, who in living out the mission ultimately lost her life.
Three years ago, Sister Dorothy was shot to death in Anapu, Para, a section of Brazil's Amazon rainforest, where she had lived for 22 years working as an advocate for poor rural farmers. Upon meeting her would-be assassins in the rainforest, she offered the Bible as her only weapon of defense.
"That was a great act of courage," said Sister Janet of Sister Dorothy, who the College officially remembered during a special memorial Mass on Tuesday, February 12th. "Today that mission in the rainforests of Brazil continues not only with the Sisters of Notre Dame but with hundreds of others and the story has gone around the world. It inspires us to see the impact that one life can have, especially when one believes deeply in the goodness of God and lives out that mission with joy."