Holy Cross sister keeps serving even in retirement

Intermountain Catholic

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Holy Cross Sister Martha Ann Norwood teaches English as a Second Language as one of several activities she has begun in retirement. IC photo/Marie Mischel

MURRAY — For 61 years, Holy Cross Sister Martha Ann Norwood has responded to the needs of the Catholic community. She spent the first 37 years as a vowed religious teaching middle school. Then, after a sabbatical, she moved into the nursing field, where she worked for 18 years. Her last position was in pastoral care at Saint Joseph Villa, from which she retired in 2004, at least officially.

"I wasn’t ready to retire; I was only 76," she said. "I should feel wonderful just to be able to sit and do nothing, but that old community training is ‘you’ve got to keep busy.’ The sisters who retire – I guess for most of us, it means we don’t get paid but we just keep busy, to be of service."

In Sr. Martha Ann’s case, that service includes teaching two Scripture classes and coordinating the RCIA program at Saint Martin de Porres Parish. Until last year she volunteered at the Care Source Hospice Center in Salt Lake City. She stopped visiting patients there so she could undertake training at the English Skills Learning Center in order to begin teaching English as a Second Language.

"My first vision was that I could teach people in the parish who need English, but when you go through the center they assign you students," she said. Now she meets twice a week to teach English to an Iraqi woman.

At the parish, Sr. Martha Ann "builds very close relationships with the people in these classes," said the pastor, Father Jan Bednarz. "She is not only the teacher but also their friend, and she tries to solve their problems, if they have any."

Sr. Martha Ann moved to Utah as a child. She left in 1949 to join the Holy Cross Sisters, but returned in 1995 to help care for her ailing mother. When she retired, she decided to stay in the Salt Lake area rather than move to one of her religious order’s retirement houses. Now, however, she anticipates that within two years she may return to her mother house, St. Mary of the Immaculate Conception, in Indiana.

"I have wonderful friends at St. Mary that I entered community with and I want to be there before they die," she said. "In fact, I’ve written them all and said, ‘Don’t you dare die before I get there. I will be there soon."

Even in the convent, though she anticipates working in one way or another.

"There’s a lot to do at St. Mary," she said. "They’ll always put you to work."

She feels fortunate that the Sisters of the Holy Cross have a retirement plan, she said. "A lot of communities either larger or smaller than ours don’t have a mother house. They don’t have a place to retire for their sisters."

Religious communities like the Sisters of the Holy Cross are responsible for the care of their retired members. Traditionally, however, "Catholic sisters, brothers, and religious order priests, known collectively as women and men religious, served for small stipends that did not include retirement benefits. As a result, many religious communities now lack adequate savings for retirement and elder care," according to the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. Therefore, in 1988 the USCCB launched the Retirement Fund for Religious. Each year a special collection is taken up in parishes throughout the United States for this need. In June of this year, $23 million in financial assistance was distributed to 453 religious communities to aid in the care of their senior members, according to the USCCB.

In the Diocese of Salt Lake City, the special collection for religious retirement will be taken up at Masses during the weekend of Aug. 4-5.