Sister Meg Sass
Sister Meg at the Boise diocesan center, as the Regional coordinator for Parish Life and Faith Formation. |
How can a monastic community in rural Idaho change the world? Sister Meg Sass of the Monastery of St. Gertrude has the answer. “There are so many problems in the world we can’t even imagine,” she says. “Many people don’t even have a cup of water. The Monastery says maybe we can’t fix these problems, but we can tap into the power of God for whom nothing is impossible. ”
“Monastic life taught me how to pray,” she explains. “Prayer isn’t words. Prayer is relationship. As deep as you want to go, God will go. The times we pray alone or as we pray as community there is joy – and not the ‘we’re-all-happy’ feeling,” she says. “But joy as the presence of what is right, good, powerful… to be in union with God to where everyone has what they need.”
Her journey as a professed Sister of the Monastery of St. Gertrude has led her ever more deeply into God’s service. Raised in Twin Falls, a rapid succession of events in her teens led her to recognize her call. In her sophomore year, a priest asked her bluntly, “Why aren’t you at St. Gertrude’s?”
It took a bit of research for her to even find out what “St. Gertrude’s” was and her parents allowed her the freedom to discern at her own pace. A friend’s daughter then came home from the Monastery for a visit and Meg was invited up to Cottonwood to experience an Investment and Profession weekend.
“At the end of the weekend, the novice mistress asked how many of us would come back,” she says. “Mine and Sister Barbara Jean’s hands went up.”
At St. Gertrude’s, she completed her Junior and Senior year and started college as a novice. Then she finished her Bachelor’s degree at Gonzaga University and then University of Idaho. In 1962, she made her First Profession. She taught school for 13 years before heading to Chicago’s Loyola University for a Master’s degree in Pastoral Studies.
“Chicago was a wonderful time,” she remembers. “I got to meet all the different cultures and had my first entrée into social organization.” Witnessing the affects of gentrification on immigrant communities, she began a program to give useable items that Loyola students would discard at the end of the year to underprivileged families.
Back in Idaho, Sister Meg found herself working with an ecumenical team of ministers in Lewiston that were focused on improving care of the elderly. At the encouragement of Sister Mary Kay Henry, she then responded to an ad from the Spokane diocese for a Director of Social Ministry.
At first, she was intimidated that the scope of leadership for the position that included all of Eastern Washington. She held off applying. But then the focus of the work became two Spokane County parishes and she agreed to serve there.
“It is interesting that the job eventually expanded to include all of Eastern Washington anyway,” she muses. “But I loved it.”
She began her work with an assessment of needs: How could the churches in that area respond to the community’s challenges? She discovered the demographic included many women who moved to the area to be near a loved one in jail. This meant that they were often raising children alone with little resources, skills, and family support. She helped found a service called Our Place in 1987 that is still serving that area of Spokane to this day.
After 13 years in Spokane, Sister Meg was called home to the Monastery to serve as Sister Jean Lalande’s Sub-Prioress. This term of leadership saw the building of Spirit Center, a retreat facility, along with ambitious Monastery renovations.
Building Spirit Center was a risk for the Monastery but it was a call, Sister Meg feels, they couldn’t ignore. “As people move faster and faster,” she explains, “people are going to need monasteries more and more as a place to slow down and ground. It is a place where they can discern, ‘Is this who I am and what I really want to do?’ As a community, we can offer this place we’ve been given and we can live our Benedictine spirituality with absolute integrity.”
“We welcome all to come to the Monastery to get in touch with the God they really can trust. There is no life that isn’t powerful valuable and unique; in this place we want you to experience that.” she says. “Like everyone else in the world, even the Monastery is challenged to walk in uncertainty. But whatever the future brings, God is already there.”
Now Sister Meg serves at the Boise diocesan center. She is the Regional coordinator for Parish Life and Faith Formation. She works with the northern part of the state from Riggins to Canada and her work is a balance between planning large events and one-on-one ministry.
She feels that the biggest challenge facing the diocese is being proactive about serving the needs of an increasingly multicultural community. “It’s not something we can just back in to,” she says. “We need a vision. There’s no room in today’s world for a parish where people aren’t active and inspired. People will only go to a parish that’s involved and making a difference in the world. Catholic does not mean Sunday. Catholic is a choice about a way to live."
Upcoming! Sister Meg will celebrate her 50th Jubilee on July 28 at 1:30 p.m. She will also celebrate at Sacred Heart Parish in Boise on August 15.