President's Blog: From the Heart
75 Years of Saying Yes
By Eric F. Spina
When Sister Rose Rucoba ‘19 noticed all the statues of Mary on campus, it took her back to her childhood in Wheaton, Illinois, where she was raised on stories of Our Lady of Guadalupe and enjoyed participating in May crownings. She quickly felt at home at UD.
At 16, Sister Laura Leming volunteered at the Marianist Family Retreat Center in Cape May Point, New Jersey, and began to discover a new home.
For 75 years, the U.S. has been a home for the Daughters of Mary Immaculate (the Marianist sisters), a worldwide order of approximately 300 sisters in 17 countries. We’re blessed to have six sisters in Dayton, whose ministries span education, environmental justice, pastoral care, and social justice.
Both Sister Rose, who professed first vows last year, and Sister Laura, who entered the order nearly half a century ago, say they immediately felt comfortable with the Marianist sisters. The Marianists, as anyone on our campus can attest, have a way of gently drawing people into their inclusive community of religious and lay people who educate for service, justice, and peace. I love how they model for all of us Mary’s courage, faith, and welcoming presence.
As a sophomore, Sister Rose participated in a retreat on Governor’s Island at Indian Lake where she met young sisters who were “easy to relate to” and fun. “I had really inspired conversations with them, and we (bonded over) Harry Potter and the TV series Gilmore Girls — normal things.” Now a teacher’s aide and religion teacher at Our Lady of Rosary School in Dayton, she’s embraced her vocation and views Mary as “a mother and a protector, a sister and a friend.”
After Sister Laura’s introduction to the Marianist Family in Cape May Point, she remembers thinking, “These people were prayerful but hilarious. Who wouldn’t want to do this for the rest of their life? When I learned that sisters, brothers, priests, and lay people work together as equals, I knew that was a model of church I wanted to be a part of.”
Today, Sister Laura teaches sociology and has often traveled to India to teach and conduct research. She shares a house just outside the student neighborhood with Sister Rose and Sister Emily Sandoval, coordinator of communications for five local parishes and the Dayton Hispanic community. Sister Leanne Jablonski, director of the Marianist Environmental Center, lives nearby, and two others — Sister Marcia Buchard and Sister Marie Abmayr — reside at the St. Leonard retirement community.
While small in numbers, UD’s Marianist sisters are embedded securely in the larger Marianist family and in the UD family. The words of foundress Blessed Adèle de Batz de Trenquelléon inspire their faith and hope for a church and a society where no one is left out: “Oh my God, my heart is too small to love you, so I will make you loved by so many other hearts, that their love will make up for the littleness of mine.”
As we celebrate the 75th anniversary of their mission in the United States, the Marianist sisters call us to expand our hearts and walk with others, particularly the most vulnerable, in our world.
(In advance of the visit to Dayton of the FMI General Administration, the Provincial Council of the Daughters of Mary Immaculate will be on campus in October, visiting with the University of Dayton’s Board of Trustees. Both groups will participate in the Marianist World Day of Prayer Mass at 2 p.m., Oct. 20, at Queen of Apostles Chapel at Mount St. John. All are invited. As part of anniversary celebrations, The Marianist Women’s Summit: Women of the Magnificat will take place Oct. 25-26 at St. Mary’s University in San Antonio.)