Former Rolla Newman Center director garnered lessons on servant leadership
Sister Renita Brummer of the Franciscan Sisters of Our Lady of Perpetual Help (FSOLPH) once served for 10 years as director of the Catholic Newman Center in Rolla.
Sister Ellen Horn, also a Franciscan Sister, taught at St. Patrick School during those same 10 years. They were quite a Franciscan presence.
Now, as minister general of the FSOLPH congregation, Sr. Renita draws on leadership skills the university students and the entire Rolla community helped her develop.
“In Franciscan circles, we are all called to minister and serve,” she noted in a recent interview. “As minister general, I’m to minister to all the sisters in our congregation.”
She said ministering to college students in Rolla, which is home to the Missouri University of Science and Technology (Missouri S&T), helped her see how urgently “a leader is called to listen, discern, pray and then act.”
Her time there required her to collaborate with St. Patrick Parish in Rolla and its pastor, other denominational ministers on campus, members of the university administration, and others who are involved in Catholic campus ministry in the Jefferson City diocese.
“And the students!” she said. “They came from so many different experiences and brought a lot of interesting ideas into my office to talk about.”
All of this helped her “learn how to listen and respect and be enriched by a diversity of perspectives.”
It also drew her more deeply into prayer.
“Prayer is the foundation for everything we do,” she said.
Itinerant ministry
Sr. Renita, who grew up in the Effingham, Illinois, area has been a sister since 1966.
The FSOLPH congregation, now headquartered in Kirkwood near St. Louis, was founded in 1901. Its members follow the more-than-800-year-old Third Order Regular Rule of St. Francis.
“The spirit of St. Francis and the Franciscan charism is really our foundation and animates us and gives us direction and calls us to mission,” said Sr. Renita.
It includes a strong focus on the goodness of God and the mystery of the Incarnation of Jesus Christ, which Franciscans see as ongoing and revealed in all things.
“That is reflected in our strong presence, especially to those who are on the margins of society,” she said.
Franciscans relate to God’s creation in the closest of terms.
“We see creation not as something simply for people to use, but in humility as brother and sister, all in God’s family,” she said.
The congregation’s members emphasize empowering God’s people by offering themselves as a presence of hope and joy with them.
“We’re not there for the people or to do anything to them,” Sr. Renita emphasized. “We are there to be WITH them.”
Like the sower of seeds in Jesus’s parable, each of the FSOLPH sisters tend to keep moving.
“We go where there’s a need, serve with hope and joy and be a transforming presence,” said Sr. Renita. “And in being in presence with them, we share Gospel hope and joy, which empowers them. And then we move on.”
The years are kind
When Bishop Michael F. McAuliffe, now deceased, interviewed her for the position in 1996, he asked her to commit to five years in the role, to help bring stability to Catholic campus ministry in Rolla.
By the end of that time, she realized that Rolla’s Newman community needed to build a proper campus ministry center.
“So, we set about doing that,” she recalled. “And when we got that done, we had a big celebration, and Bishop (John R.) Gaydos came and said Mass, and the past presidents of the Newman community helped burn the mortgage.”
By then, Sr. Renita felt that she had done what was hers to do in Rolla, “so I moved on to the next challenge.”
Such decisions come through prayer, contemplation and asking, “Where is God in this?” and “What is he calling us to be about?”
“I’ve taught high school, I’ve worked in campus ministry, I was director of a large Franciscan retreat center, I’ve been in leadership roles with our community,” Sr. Renita recounted.
“And at each of those, it’s like God calls forth the best of your gifts, calls you to be the best you are,” she said. “And the people bless you, and in serving in each place, I am formed, blessed, happier, and I would say wiser.”
That was certainly the case for working with young adults at the Rolla Newman Center.
“I discovered that they have so much hope and that they have a lot of questions,” she said. “And questions are very important and come from a deep thirst and hunger in us to know better what God wants us to do.”
She recognized in the young people “a great sense of service” and “a tremendous sense of community, a desire for it and willingness to invest in it.”
She also appreciated living in community with Sr. Ellen and ministering in the same vineyard with her.
“We were very much a team, sharing a Franciscan spirit,” Sr. Renita recalled. “She was loved and respected. Some called us ‘the dynamic duo.’”
Fully present
Sr. Renita is convinced that there remains a great need for Consecrated Religious Life. But the call to that vocation looks different these days.
“The needs are different,” she said. “God is still calling women to respond to those needs, to witness to living a common life for a common purpose, out of deep spirituality and prayer.”
She noted that the FSOLPH congregation is no longer growing, but its sisters are connected with an Indigenous Franciscan community of Sisters in Haiti.
“There’s great need there, and they’re getting religious vocations, and we’re supporting them and what they’re all about,” said Sr. Renita.
She recalled that when she entered Religious Life over 50 years ago, “I was covered head to toe with a habit, and everything was pretty much regimented.”
Her intention upon entering was to love God, do his work and bring him to people and people to him, whatever that required of her.
“Now, I realize that I am living in the presence of a great mystery, and I’m being called to be, first and foremost, a presence of God’s faithfulness,” she said.
With the same great love and deep humility, she sets about discerning, “How am I being called to be God’s presence, here and now?” — and accepting that invitation “with love, perspective and humor.”
“You can’t do any of this if you don’t have a sense of humor,” she said, noting that the word has the same origin as “human,” “humus” and “humble.”
Something new
The world keeps shifting and changing at a dizzying pace.
“That presents a lot of challenges, but I don’t think it’s bad,” said Sr. Renita. “Rather than say, ‘We live in a time of great uncertainty,’ I prefer to see that we are navigating God’s mystery.
“God is in the midst of creating something new,” she insisted. “Each day is a mystery before us, rather than something for us to be afraid of.”
The Church has endured many periods of seismic transition, and members of religious orders, congregations, institutes and societies have always found creative new ways to respond and reveal God’s presence.
“That’s what we’re still doing,” said Sr. Renita. “There are new orders starting up all the time. And there is great diversity of how they live and what they commit to. Because it takes a lot of diversity to reflect the full charism of Religious Life.
“It takes all of us to reflect how God wants to serve with his people and respond to a need through us,” she said.
God is moving in the hearts of many people — “some young, some not-so-young” — to do particular works, she said.
The key is to keep pressing onward in awe and wonder in the midst of life’s struggles — “not despite the struggles, but in the midst of them.”
She pointed out that historically, the times of deepest crisis in the Church are when the greatest saints emerge.
“And they didn’t always color inside the lines!” she said.
The Holy Spirit is always summoning God’s people to be creative, persistent and open to God’s promptings.
“Yes, the Spirit is going to be with us in our normal ways,” said Sr. Renita. “But the Spirit can also do very surprising things — things we can’t even imagine. Just ask the Virgin Mary! Or the saints!”
Each of them tuned in to the great mystery and tried to live it faithfully, one day at a time.
Sr. Renita pointed out that a proper perspective includes both awe and lament at everything going on in the world.
“We cannot be about compassion and mercy if we don’t stop and lament,” she said. “If we don’t feel the lament, we won’t know the invitation to trust, either.”
She warned against the trap of feeling the need to “fix” everything.
“No! You have to simply be with it, in the midst of it,” she said. “That’s where you experience the mercy.”
Called to be creative
Members of the worldwide Franciscan family see protecting the vulnerable, defending creation and promoting a spirit of nonviolence as an essential part of their calling.
“God is so creative with us, and he engages us and invites us,” said Sr. Renita. “So how can we — all of us, especially sisters — how can we live out a creative sense of community and nonviolence, that’s always inclusive and lets the largeness of God’s compassion and mercy be known?”
She remains in touch through social media with many of the students who were active at the Rolla Newman Center during her time there.
“Part of the gift of that is finding out what they’re about, how they’re living out their faith,” she said. “I really do hold all of them in prayer, everyone I’ve been privileged to serve, and I continue to believe that I can be a gift to each of them, too.”
As the World Day of Consecrated Life approaches, Sr. Reina asks for prayers of thanksgiving to God for the witness and courage of religious sisters and brothers throughout the Church.
“And thank him for who they have been and their faithfulness and courage — and their flaws, too,” she suggested. “And then ask for the Spirit to help us serve and be courageous and faithful.”
She knows that many such prayers are already being offered up.
“I can really feel it!” she said.
