Sister Marie Regine Redig, SSND

• Professed 1950
• Past ministries: Elementary teacher and sometimes principal for 23 years; SSND district coordinator for two years; spiritual/retreat director for 30 years overlapped with eight years as formation director for SSNDs temporary professed and coordinator and presenter of spirituality programs for 15 years at Mount Mary College in the Ewens Center for Women
• Present ministry: While semi-retired, serves as a spiritual/retreat director; Soma-synthesis body worker; and volunteer. Lives in small community in Milwaukee.

Double celebration of birthdays with Jim, our first foster child on the farm in East Troy. He now lives in a group
home and I take him out monthly to eat and to shop.

The School Sisters of Notre Dame and I have claimed each other for 55 years of commitment in the mission of making one on Earth. I grew up in Marshfield, WI, where all my teachers were SSNDs. My favorites among them as well as my big sister who had joined the community, made SSND a natural choice for me.

Religious life was rigorous in those days with many disciplinary rules. I didn't like them but I wanted to be a sister and often thought about S. Carola, my blood sister, and said to myself, "If she can do it, I can too." Vatican II released us from much of the rigor; the part that kept us immature and not responsible for our own lives. Excitement surged within me every time I saw the sense and value in Church and religious life changes. I studied and updated in theology, grew to know a loving God, and understood who and what makes Church.

Reading stories to S. Gladys' second
graders at Prince of Peace School.

Ministering to Jesus in the People of God has been the treasure of my life. With and through them, I discovered new depths of my own human and religious development. Life with my SSND sisters along with Church and world involvement revealed deeper layers in the meaning of my vowed life. A real gift of wholeness!

My grandma once told me, "Into every life, some rain must fall." I believe there is a pivotal point in the journey for each of us where the storm hits hard but eventually brings us to conversion. In my mid-30s, I became aware of hearing impairment in both ears. I didn't like it but I lived with it. In my early 40s, corrective ear surgery failed and left me with sudden and total loss in one ear. Dizziness and imbalance devastated my efforts to proceed as usual for more than a year. This crisis changed my life and ministry physically, psychologically, and spiritually.

My spunk and spirit of determination would not allow me to curl up and die. While forced to mourn my loss and venting my anger at God, I was busy trying to adjust to my new world in leaning how and what to do for myself and what to ask of others in my need. Tremendous support came from my SSND sisters, family and friends. Gradually, my inner spirit quieted as I reflected upon and accepted God's strange ways so different from my own plans. The community graciously gave me a sabbatical to find myself and to retool for a new ministry. I began to "hear" things I'd never heard before, especially about suffering, surrender and compassion. Incredible lessons for my ensuing years of ministry in walking life's twists and turns with others!

Once a month, I babysit great-gradn nephew,
Thomas, while he parents have an evening alone.
It was my baptism gift to all of them; gift to me, too.

I've been blessed as an SSND with a wonderful education and opportunities for enrichment and travel. The community and I have been faithful to each other in our mission to make one among the People of God.

When I think about the future and down-the-road retirement, my desire leans toward our retirement home in Mount Calvary. Nestled amidst rolling hills and farmland, our organic farm linked to an eco-spirituality center seems to be a good place for me. I'm deaf now in both ears but, thank God, a hearing aid works in one. The quiet of the country invites me and I could once again claim my childhood farm roots.

Putzing with clay, to feed my artistic sense.

Best of all and most important to me, wherever I am and whatever I do, I continue to be in love with our God and to hunger for our daily encounter in prayer.

How are you being called to travel deeper into who you are in the heart of God?

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