Tuesday, July 24, 2001
Tuesday, July 24, 2001
I press on toward the goal for the prize of the heavenly call of God in Christ Jesus.
Sister Mary and her friend Joan heard the call of God. They were raised from internal and
external conflicts to the stature of spiritual conflict. They had a decision to make before God to
go on with their lives as if they had never heard God's call or to give themselves to something
greater than themselves. What will you do?
(Philippians 3:14
NRSV)
Sister Mary Scullion lives in a 4th floor cell at a former Franciscan convent that is now home for
25 male addicts in various stages of recovery. Inspired by Mother Teresa and others in 1976, at a
Eucharistic Congress, Sister Mary began to see the hungry and homeless in her midst in her
hometown of Philadelphia. And a conflict began in her soul. "Before this I would go to Mass and
think I was fulfilling my obligation," she says. "But now, I began to see that there really was
hunger in our city and around the world, and I came to realize how much more needs to be done."
She was teaching 7th grade math and working toward a degree in social work, when she
volunteered at Mercy Hospice, working with the homeless. Later, she would found a shelter for
women, called Women of Hope. Other things followed. Along the way she met Joan
Dawson-McConnon, at that time a graduate student with a degree in accounting and soon to have
a master's in taxation. Joan had the same Christian impulses as Sister Mary and soon they were
working together. Today the two--Sister Mary Scullion and Joan Dawson-McConnon--oversee a
program with a six million dollar budget that provides shelter, education and rehabilitation of both
people and neighborhoods that has become a model far and wide.
Dear God, call me, so that I may know the way you want me to go. Amen.
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