By Paula Day

Sister Loretta Costa, celebrating her golden jubilee as a Sister of St. Joseph this year, could be considered a rare variety. She is a native Georgia Catholic.

Her parents, Lawrence and Loretta Costa, came to Athens, Ga., from Ohio in the early 1920s because there was “a good market for Costa’s Delicious Ice Cream in the South.” Mary Elizabeth, the oldest four Costa children, was born in 1923.

Her contact with the Sisters of St. Joseph of Georgia began early. The Costa house was home away from home for the Religious women who came from Washington, Ga. to teach vacation Bible School in Athens. The family frequently drove to Washington with ice cream treats for the boys who lived under the Sisters’ care at St. Joseph’s Home.

While Catholics were a distinct minority in Georgia in the 1930s, Sister Loretta said this fact never bothered them.

“Yes, we ate fish on Friday and came to school late after being in the Holy Thursday procession, and didn’t even go to school on Good Friday. We just rolled with the punches.” She credits her parents with giving her and her siblings a sense of security and independence.

Since the Catholic Church in Athens was “mother church” for several missions, the parish has Mass only once a month. On other Sundays, Monsignor James King would travel to Gainesville or LaGrange or Griffin to offer Mass.

“Talk about missionary spirit,” she recalls in admiration of her pastor. “In those days, this meant driving over hot, dusty roads without even a drink of water.”

Sister Loretta says her vocation grew out of her home. Her Irish Catholic mother always prayed that one of her children would have a religious vocation.

Mrs. Costa also wanted her daughter to have a Catholic education, so as a seventh grader young Mary Elizabeth went off to Mount DeSales, a Catholic boarding school in Macon. She “loved” her four years at the school and the Sisters of Mercy there fostered her budding vocation.

In 1939, after finishing the tenth grade, she entered the Sisters of St. Joseph of Georgia in Augusta. The Augusta and St. Louis, Mo., provinces of the congregation joined in 1960 to become the Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet, St. Louis Province.

Sister Loretta has spent 40 of her 50 years as a Religious in Georgia, first as teacher, principal, local superior, regional superior and general manager of the Village of St. Joseph. At the present time, she manages St. Teresa Manor, a personal care home for the elderly. For health reasons, she will resign from St. Teresa’s June 1.

During her years in Georgia, she was assigned to schools in Savannah, Brunswick, Valdosta, Milledgeville, Augusta and Atlanta. For six years she was based in Marietta and traveled throughout as regional superior for her community.

In her early years of teaching the Church’s main thrust was also toward social issues and working with the poor, she said. She earned a bachelor’s degree at St. Catherine College in St. Paul and a master’s from St. Louis University, both in sociology.

In Brunswick the Portuguese fishermen would pay their children’s tuition in fresh catch. She remembers a little girl bringing a scrub bucket half full of fresh shrimp to the convent door one Friday afternoon. She admits she wouldn’t mind a payment like that today.

The Portuguese may have been poor, Sister Loretta added, but they instilled in their children a love of the Church and pride in their heritage.

While she was teaching in Milledgeville, she was approached by a contemporary who wanted to become one of her piano students on the condition, “I won’t have to be in one of your stupid recitals.”

Flannery O’Connor played the piano a lot like she wrote, according to Sister Loretta. “She played meticulously, but without a lot of feeling. She remained very detached. I thoroughly enjoyed her as a student.”

The music teacher scheduled the now celebrated writer for lessons at the end of the day and afterward the two would discuss contemporary Church issues.

“She was very traditional. She thought afternoon Mass was ‘stupid’ and Mass in English was ‘dumb.’ She’d go bonkers now,” with all the liturgical and other changes in Church life, Sister Loretta concludes.

In her role as regional superior, the woman Religious experienced a variety of episcopal attitudes toward women in the Church that deepened her commitment to the women’s movement. “For a long time we have taken a back seat in Church matters,” she says.

She supports such issues as equal pay and equal job opportunities, through donations and letter writing, according to her longtime friend, Sister Angela Abood.

Sister Loretta charted new waters when she took over as general manager at the Village of St. Joseph, leaving the administrator free to focus on the home’s residents and their needs. She admits the task of overseeing the support staff, planning meals and making purchases was a challenge.

“She’s a woman, who’s very involved in life,” commented Sister Helen Mick, a Sister of St. Joseph of Concordia, Kansas, who is manager of St. Thomas Manor for the elderly in College Park. “She makes the most of every situation she’s in.”

Sister Loretta’s greatest talent would seem to be her generous concern and care for others.

“She’s a very giving person in so many ways,” Sister Angela Abood remarked. “I don’t drive and she’s always ready to take me where I need to go.” And Sister Helen Mick noted how caring Sister Loretta is of the women at St. Teresa Manor.

“She’s in touch with what they go through - present to them and caring of them. They become her family. She’s the same with the staff. She’s not separated from them, and she’s so supportive of others.”

At a Communion service for the women at the Manor, Sister Loretta demonstrated many of these qualities. The more able women were asked to help those on walkers or in wheel chairs.

She commented on the Scripture readings of the day, pointing out, ‘“Don’t be too hard on those coming into the Church. Be loving, kind and gentle,’ that’s what the apostle is saying. The lesson for us is that there are times when what people do is going to bother us. But deep down we must love one another.”

In March, Sister Loretta, her brother, Jerry Costa, and two sisters, Fran Conlon and Theresa Kearnes, drove to St. Louis for the congregations’ March 17 celebration for its jubilarians. In early May she and her brother spent two weeks in Italy, his gift to her. She hopes to have a local celebration at St. Anthony’s parish in Atlanta Sept. 8.