"FAITH SUBJECTS"

ATLANTA--Sister Mary Loretta Purcell, OP, died May 28, 1995, in the 89th year of her life, the 57th year of her profession as a nun. Sister Loretta slipped into Atlanta over 55 years ago to work with the Hawthorne Dominican nuns in caring for the poor, terminally ill cancer patients at Our Lady of Perpetual Help Home.

She slipped out of Atlanta into eternity in an equally unobtrusive way, no fanfare, no fuss. The Hawthorne Dominicans get embarrassed if you make too much of their work. It is an impressive work. Even the cynical, agnostic Mark Twain recognized it as a towering work of virtue and sacrifice, but the nuns don't really broadcast themselves or their work.

Sister Loretta was drawn to them many years ago. From hard working, Irish-American stock, she had been a professional woman before she entered the order founded by the daughter of Nathaniel Hawthorne.

The sisters have one goal, to bridge the sorrow and suffering of cancer with compassion and kindness in the name of Christ. If you want a small insight into their life, one of their more remarkable patients and Sister Loretta herself, read the short book, Mission Fulfilled.

I have been honored by a long-term association with the Cancer Home. While stationed in the parish I would take groups of boys down to serve the 6:30 a.m. Mass. Doing so would require that they rise at 4 a.m., may their parents forgive me!

In four years no child ever overslept. They would serve Mass, see the sisters and their work, be served a huge breakfast by Sister Loretta, and then go to the Hilton Hotel. There they had another breakfast, rode the elevators for an hour and then always got back late for school. May the teachers forgive me!

I lived down there for two years as chaplain and in those years and subsequent years scores of St. Pius X High School students would come down and visit. Nothing has made me prouder as a priest than to have all those young people see the home, and the nuns, and dear Sister Loretta.

I miss her. I also miss the wisdom of Sister Eucharia, the wit of Sister Aquinas, and all the other sisters who have died or gone to other assignments.

I find myself comforted and challenged by their example. In a tormented age for women Religious, these sisters have no "identity crisis." They probably do not have time for one.

They love the Church, the pope, the sick, the poor and their own religious vows. Sister Loretta was typical of so many nuns I have known over the years, the Grey Nuns, the Mercys, the Dominicans. They have this absolute gentleness balanced with steel-like conviction and devotion.

I pray my former altar boys, my ex-students, think about Sister Loretta and the nuns at the Cancer Home. Some of them are well up into their 30s, and most are caught up in making a place for themselves in the world.

As they pursue possessions, wealth and power, I hope they look back and remember Sister Loretta. She owned nothing but her habit, rosary and prayer book. She had no power, but to serve the dying. She had one day a month "to do her own thing."

I hope they remember and ponder the fact that you will find no one in life more pleased with life than the Hawthorne Dominican nuns. I hope they realize that Sister Loretta left no fortune and no descendants but also hope they consider what she went on to:

The welcome of thousands of patients, whose last memory on earth before they saw the face of God was Sister Loretta's kindness. The welcome of Mary, who like Sister Loretta gave up everything to follow Christ. The loving, grateful embrace of the one who said: "Whatsoever you do for the least of my brothers, you do for me."

I remember that Sister Loretta had one fear upon entering the Dominicans, leaving her beloved widowed father. She has gone home to her parents, and will never have to say good-bye again.

Whatever a family sacrifices in "giving away" a son or daughter to the Church is nothing compared to what they receive in return. I hope my altar boys and students remember her life to teach them to prioritize their own. I hope her life inspires them to recall the saying, "Tis only one life, will soon past, only what is done of Christ will last."

My students are not called to give up family and possessions as Sister Loretta did, but I pray her example will inspire them to cherish their marriages and children more than their jobs. I hope observing the nuns will make them use their time as much for the practice of their Catholic faith, and their service of the poor, as for making money they cannot take with them. I hope seeing all the stuff Sister Loretta lived so happily without will give them a proper perspective on the things they think must have.

For me as a diocesan priest it is good to be around members of Religious orders, whether they be the Hawthorne Dominicans or the Trappist monks at Conyers.

They remind me, by their vow of poverty, of Joseph Maistre's words: "Reason speaks in words alone, but love has a song." The simplicity of their lives is a song of love.

Their vow of chastity points us all to the ultimate love of the heart of Christ. In the same way, their putting aside of their own wishes in the vow of obedience reminds me of Josef Pieper's notion that modern man's basic problem is that he has lost his sight: his sight of what is eternal, Almighty God and his soul.

Thank you, Sister Loretta. Many of us see life more clearly after having watched your life of love and sacrifice in poverty, chastity and obedience in Christ. May we all one day see what you must see now.

Father Lopez is a priest of the Archdiocese of Atlanta who teaches religion at St. Pius X Catholic High School.