Since last fall, our Ursuline community has
joined the universal church in marking a Holy Year of the Eucharist..
Both our community day in September and our June community retreat
provided us with reflection time on the four Eucharistic actions:
Take, Bless, Break, and Give.
For 49 years, our Sister Ellen Rose embodied those actions
in her vowed life with us. On Friday evening, surrounded by some of
her Ursuline sisters and all of her family, she slipped quietly from this
world into the loving arms of God.
God took Sr. Ellen Rose from a promising career
as a statistical clerk at Republic Steel to religious life as an Ursuline
Sister. God blessed her with a sharp mind, a loving family,
and a ministry of teaching, most of which was spent at Ursuline High
School. her alma mater. The breaking of Sr. Ellen Rose's life
began as her health began to deteriorate in the 1980's. Another
breaking came with the death of her only sister, Jane. Because of
God's goodness, Sr. Ellen Rose used her life, even in sickness, to give:
to give love, give service, to give example to us in bearing our burdens
with a peaceful and loving heart.
For more than two years as a resident at Humility House,
Sr. Ellen Rose has carried about in her body the sufferings of Christ in
patient waiting. With her warm and ever ready smile, her kind and
gracious acceptance of the trials of illness, she enriched the lives of
those who daily ministered to her. Now Sr. Ellen Rose lives in the
fullness of the promise of God's salvation with her parents, her sister
Jane, and all her Ursuline sisters.
Each time the church celebrates the Eucharist, it is the
prayer of the whole church. Our sister now prays among the saints of
God, freed from her broken body.
