Ursuline shares her gifts across continents

Always a contemplative, Sr. Geraldine Kelly took time to find vocation

- WCR photo by Bill Glen Sr. Geraldine Kelly points to the apartment in the Ursulines of Jesus motherhouse in France where she stayed for nine years.

By BILL GLEN
WCR Staff Writer
Edmonton

If good timing was measurable by a single sheet of paper, then Sister Geraldine Kelly came home from a four-day meeting recently with reams of it.

Only minutes ahead of a powerful storm that closed airports and clogged kilometres of highways from the American Midwest to Eastern Canada, Kelly barely escaped to Edmonton from hard-hit Columbus, Ohio.

And the northern lights offered a dazzling display for much of the overnight flight home.

Travel is typical for Kelly, formation director for the Ursulines of Jesus community in Edmonton. She is also president of the Council of Women Religious for the archdiocese.

She has spent nine years in the order's motherhouse in France and has helped her sisters in Africa and South America.

"I enjoy sharing freely of whatever I have or what I have learned," Kelly said. "There is a real joy for me to be able to share a discovery with others."

Kelly grew up in Edmonton and St. Albert. Her father was a baker who became a plumber while her mother worked in a bank.

Coming home from Sunday Mass, her parents would ask Kelly and her two older brothers questions about what they had found interesting in the homily.

"We discussed it in the car. It seemed the natural thing to do."

Kelly has always been a contemplative sort. As a child, she preferred walking to school to taking the bus as a way to clear her mind and focus. She enjoys reading and sewing.

When she taught junior high home economics, she says the students taught her as much as she taught them.

"What I taught wasn't so much about cooking as it was about how to get along with each other. They worked in teams and I worked with them in such a way that they grew in self-confidence. I enjoyed being with them," she said.

"A lot of the students had learning disabilities. They taught me an awful lot about patience and being genuine."

She taught in a classroom for only two years, but Kelly says she has been an educator for as long as she can remember.

Relationship with God

"In spiritual direction, I try to put people in touch with the importance and significance of their relationship with God and other people - and about how that can be of service to the Church and others," she said.

Kelly is currently working on a doctor of ministry degree at St. Stephen's College at the University of Alberta.

"Education has opened up the world to me. And visiting the sisters in different countries has been a fabulous learning experience," she said.

"Once I've discovered something and reflected on it a little bit, I like to put it out there with other people. It gets them thinking and reflecting."

Entering religious life was not something Kelly considered until her teens. Her parents used to say she and her brothers should look at all the vocations before they chose one.

Her Grade 1 teacher at St. Anthony's School was an Ursuline - Sister Maura Carey, now in her late 80s and living in south Edmonton.

When Kelly was 15, there was a large vocation display in St. Albert. Her parents invited Kelly to come along. She declined, thinking it would be of little interest. When her parents returned, they told her they had met Sister Maura. That inspired Kelly to go herself.

At the time, the sisters took in boarders. Kelly moved in for a year and attended Mount Carmel School. She decided the sisters were great people, but a religious life was not for her.

Kelly returned home to finish high school when a girlfriend, who was living with the sisters, entered the order. She asked Kelly to come and spend a weekend. Kelly said on that weekend she found a deep happiness.

"I saw a number of adults around me who were not particularly happy. I didn't want some dead-end job or a relationship that is going nowhere.

"I knew that when I was with the sisters, I was happy. Why would I turn my back on it?"

After six months, Kelly determined she had never been happier.

After Kelly taught for two years, the order asked her to consider youth and vocation ministry. She got involved in retreat groups around Edmonton and worked at the parish in Sherwood Park. She served as director of Star of the North Centre for two years before receiving a call asking her to come and serve the order from France.

In 1991, she went and stayed for nine years. She travelled to Western Europe, Cameroon, Chile, Bolivia and Ecuador.

International experience

Living a religious life is much more than she ever expected, she said. "Having been able to serve in an international situation was amazing, and it doesn't stop just because I came back to Edmonton. I keep in touch with the sisters and what is going on with them."

In their west-end home once a month from October to May, Kelly and two other sisters host Life Choices, a two-hour session of prayer and discernment for men and women. Some 15 people aged 20 to 40 now attend the two-hour sessions.

"We always make sure we have 20 to 30 minutes of prayer time with them because important things happen in that time. They share something about their lives and their search.

"Many of them have a career but they haven't found happiness. They are looking for something more."

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