Sixth Sunday of Easter

Sixth Sunday of Easter – Sister Michela Sheehan, SNDdeN

May 9, 2021

John 15: 9-17

“Only when it is dark enough can you see the stars.”
-Martin Luther King

The past year has witnessed multitudes living out the request of Jesus to love one another…We say gracias.

a tunnel maybe or unknown road
inky, scary, signless,
lonely
ignorant rain
confused clouds,
screeching “leaders”.
utter darkness

by some unearned grace
we looked up
and saw the stars.

nameless nurses holding strangers hands
and families’ hopes
worried Juan, back against McDonald’s wall
catching Wi-Fi and third grade
amazing Stacy saving Georgia
and her country
masked neighbors
gifting healthy food and smiling eyes
too-young big sisters
watching sibs
while mama
drives DoorDash
immigrant scientists
creating magic vaccines
virtual hugs and welcomed phone calls
weary workers
picking lettuce
while fearing ICE
brown woman’s hand raised
to swear in history
brown fists raised in protest
brown knees bent in patriotism
virus-enveloped paramedics
just doing their jobs
churchless faith
and voiceless hymns
teens guarding grandmas in Chinatown
a president who sees eagles wings and all our hues
sikhs guarding a synagogue
Daniela, whose phone
shocked the world toward justice
A patient man called Fauci
Incredible Greta

Stars
twinkling
blazing
shining hope
love’s lights
guiding us home ….gracias

This Sunday’s Glimpse is credited to me. However important information was left out! This was my assignment for several months. I thought and prayed about it, always with too many words to what I wanted to convey.So I asked my sister Nancy Sheehan Ng for help. What you read are Nancy’s words not mine. Her message is beautiful, and I say Gracias to her. Michela

John 15: 9-17

Jesus said to his disciples: “As the Father loves me, so I also love you. Remain in my love. If you keep my commandments, you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father”s commandments and remain in his love.”

“I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and your joy might be complete. This is my commandment: love one another as I love you. No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. You are my friends if you do what I command you. I no longer call you slaves, because a slave does not know what his master is doing. I have called you friends, because I have told you everything I have heard from my Father. It was not you who chose me, but I who chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit that will remain, so that whatever you ask the Father in my name he may give you. This I command you: love one another.”

The Gospel of the Lord

Meet Sister Michela Sheehan, SNDdeN

Sister Michela Sheehan, SNDdeN is the ninth child of thirteen children, born to an Irish Catholic family in Eureka, CA. She entered the Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur on Valentine’s Day in 1954. Sr. Michela has had a lively and varied life in Notre Dame: teaching/administration in California, Washington State and Oregon. In the United States, she was a Foster Mother for medically fragile infants in the San Francisco Bay Area, and an administrator of a home for homeless women and children in East Los Angeles. She worked also with our Sisters in Notre Dame schools in Nigeria and South Africa. Sr. Michela now volunteers at Ose Adams Medical Pavilion and Anderson Lucchetti Women’s and Children’s Center in Sacramento, CA and helps at River City Food Bank. She would say about her religious life: “All continues to be a grace-filled life.”