Cabrini University’s founding order, the Missionary Sisters of the Sacred Heart of Jesus (MSCs), is a large part of the institution’s history, mission, and vision. As the MSCs have laid the foundation for Cabrini, and continue to influence our daily operations and strategic plans, they also are making their mark on institutions and individuals throughout the world—in 14 countries, in fact.
Each Missionary Sister is accomplished, serving a number of ministries in her lifetime. And, with about 300 Missionary Sisters throughout the world, collectively, they are a powerful force as advocates for human dignity and voices for good in the world.
“Mother Cabrini used all means possible to express the love of God for each person,” said Diane Olmstead, MSC, Superior Provincial (2018) and Cabrini Trustee. “In her time, this included opening educational and health-care institutions, providing for the spiritual needs of those she served through serving in the local parishes and communities, and responding to the urgent needs that came to her through the Church and her own attention to the needs she witnessed in her travels. In 1889, she was sent to attend to the immigrant population that was flooding into the United States. Her love was practical and her vision expansive.
“Today we continue in this spirit—always seeking to express the love of God—through many similar methods, but always attentive to new and creative responses to the needs of today. Especially in this time, we seek creative ways to respond to the needs of immigrants, migrants, refugees, and trafficked persons.”
Pietrina Raccuglia, MSC, Provincial (2009–18) and Cabrini Trustee, added, “Now, more than ever, we are involving ourselves in taking action on our corporate stances of immigration and trafficking.”
The MSCs recognize that the marginalized status of women and children makes them vulnerable to sexual and financial exploitation, and have pledged to educate others regarding the prevalence, causes of, and solutions to the worldwide trafficking of women and children.
Eileen Currie, MSC (’66), Cabrini Trustee and President Emerita of Cabrini, said, “We started our human trafficking focus through our involvement in an NGO made up of several religious women’s communities known as UNANIMA International.”
Through their collaborations with UNANIMA and other non-governmental organizations, and with other religious congregations and advocacy groups, the MSCs work toward preventing trafficking, eliminating its root causes, identifying cases of trafficking, and providing alternatives to women and children who have already been or are in danger of being trafficked.
The MSCs have also shifted much of their community outreach to the United States/Mexico border, immigrant service centers, and partnerships to respond to the migrant crisis.
In 2017, to honor the 100th anniversary of Mother Cabrini’s death—celebrated because it’s the anniversary of her entry into heaven—the MSCs committed to open a center for migrant women and children in Rome in partnership with another congregation.
“Italy is the hugest receiver of refugees and immigrants coming from Africa, crossing the Mediterranean Sea,” said Barbara Staley, MSC, General Superior (2014–Present). “We will be opening up a halfway shelter that helps people get on their feet, focusing on women and children, because they’re the most underserved and vulnerable.”
After a feasibility study to determine where the greatest needs are, the MSCs decided to also open a mission in northern Uganda, on the border of South Sudan, to respond to the victims and refugees of the civil war there. They hope to open it by the end of 2018.
Yolanda Flores, MSC, a Cabrini Trustee, is working one-on-one with migrants at Cabrini Immigrant Services in New York.
“The work with migrants is a challenge and also a motivation to keep working with the vulnerable ones of today,” said Sister Yolanda.
“Today, so many people feel excluded, unwanted, isolated, or rejected,” Sister Diane said. “Through our missionary efforts, we reach out into the community to offer hope, love, respect, and the message that each one has a profound worth and dignity and that they have purpose and are loved by God. This, I believe, makes an impact, one person, one heart at a time.”
As a Cabrini Trustee, Sister Pietrina visits campus several times each year, and during those visits, she witnesses how the University lives out the legacy of Mother Cabrini and the mission of the MSCs.
“I believe the values of the Gospel are reflected at Cabrini University as well as the charism of the Missionary Sisters of the Sacred Heart of Jesus,” she said. “A sister of another community visited our campus recently and when I met her she said that we are blessed, because from the moment she stepped on campus she felt that our charism was alive, well, and lived.”
Sister Diane said, “My hope is that the University will continue to provide students an Education of the Heart, which will in turn mean that the University sends into our world men and women who care for the common good, treat others with dignity, live in solidarity, and live the golden rule: treat others as you would like to be treated, with love and respect.”
Eileen Currie, MSC (’66), first encountered Missionary Sisters when she was in grade school and they came to her house to request a donation.
“I can’t say I was immediately attracted to them,” Sister Eileen said. “They were sweet and scary to me at the same time.”
When she attended Cabrini, then an all-women’s college, she was drawn to the MSC community through her experiences with the individual sisters and because of the hands-on work they did around the globe.
“The sisters that taught me had great life and energy for what they believed in,” Sister Eileen said. She entered the community the September after her graduation from Cabrini.
She was first assigned to a middle school in Brooklyn, where she taught and then became principal. From there, Sister Eileen went to Mother Cabrini High School in Manhattan to teach religion and serve as acting principal. She returned to her alma mater, Cabrini, to become Dean of Students and then the sixth President, a role she held from 1982 to 1992.
“I was working with faculty who had taught me as a student and continued to educate me as Dean and President,” she said. “Without a doubt, the time at the college was a great education for me. I was afforded so many opportunities to learn from wonderful people. My 24 years in education were wonderful and each experience was transformative in its own way.”
During these years, she also served as a trustee in different institutions sponsored by the Missionary Sisters, and was involved in ongoing formation, which is formation for sisters after final profession. “Being able to serve in the community life is always precious.”
For the last 20-plus years, Sister Eileen has been involved in the ministry of spiritual direction, currently serving at a Jesuit retreat house in Colorado. “Being a companion to people in their search for a deeper relationship with God is truly awesome,” she said.
Yolanda Flores, MSC, said, “Since an early age, I went to Catholic school in my homeland Nicaragua, Central America. Never in my youthful years passed through my head the idea of becoming a consecrated woman. Let me say that, ‘God’s ways were not my ways,’ and here I am, an MSC and in love with my vocation and a life lived to the fullest.”
Currently working with Cabrini Immigrant Services in New York City, Sister Yolanda previously served as a high school teacher in philosophy, ethics, psychology, and religion; as a principal of a technical school in Nicaragua and at the same time as a philosophy teacher at the University of Nicaragua; Simultaneous Translator at the Office for Migrants at the Vatican City; and worked with different religious congregations in Rome, England, and Spain.
Diane Olmstead, MSC, met the MSCs in 1975 during a visit to Cabrini College, now University, to attend daily Mass (her family lived in nearby Gulph Mills). Just one Mass with Father Rudy Rooymans led her to have lunch in the convent with Bernadette Anello, MSC, which marked “the beginning of a long history with the MSCs,” Sister Diane said. She became a candidate for the MSCs five years later. Now, in her 38th year as a Missionary Sister, Sister Diane will lead the Guadalupe Province (a newly organized province derived from the Stella Maris Province) as Provincial Superior, including the United States, Australia, Guatemala, Nicaragua, and Mexico.
Before assuming her new role, she has served in a variety of ministries, including nursing, parish ministry, vocation promotion, and most recently, the Province Treasurer, in many places, including St. Cabrini Home, West Park, NY; Columbus Hospital, Chicago; St. Cabrini Senior Sister Residence, Philadelphia; and San Jose Clinic, Guatemala.
Pietrina Raccuglia, MSC, met the Missionary Sisters when she went to pre-school at the age of 5, following her mother’s path of attending an MSC-sponsored school. As a Missionary Sister, she served as a teacher, principal, guidance counselor, marriage and family therapist, formation person for the MSCs (someone who helps integrate others into the Cabrinian religious life), immigration worker, and most recently, Provincial Superior. Her many ministries spanned New York, Philadelphia, Colorado, and California.
After nine years as Provincial Superior, ministering to the sisters, overseeing the Cabrini institutions, and sharing the charism with everyone she has encountered, Sister Pietrina is preparing for a sabbatical.
“Jesus is my motivator that keeps me committed to doing what I believe He is calling me to do. I need to always have a discerning heart open and willing to respond to Jesus as best as I can.”
Barbara Staley, MSC, met the MSCs when she lived in Italy with a lay community called Covenant House while she was studying theology in Rome. When she returned to New York City, she sought out the MSCs’ vocation director and became a candidate. She did her novitiate—the initial stage of entrance into the order—at St. Donato’s Parish, on Callowhill and 67th streets in Philadelphia.
She then went to a rural community of Guatemala, where there were no telephones or running water in homes, to serve the people through human promotion—helping the Mayan people understand their rights, teaching reading and writing, and doing catechetical work in the village. She returned to New York to earn a master’s degree in social work from NYU, and then worked with the Mexican community in Chicago for 10 years, helping mostly undocumented immigrants access health care and social services. She then moved to Swaziland to respond to the HIV crisis through health care and also education/child care, because 83 percent of children had lost at least one parent to HIV or tuberculosis. She served there for 10 years until she was elected General Superior of the MSCs in 2014.
“I live in Rome as my base, although I’m not in Rome as much I am in the airplane,” Sister Barbara said, adding that her site visits consist of “a work of animation, to keep people engaged … encouraging people to do what it is that we have been called to do.”
Some may be surprised to learn that Sister Barbara had a motorcycle license for many years, and owned a Kawasaki 300 to get around, even before she drove a scooter around Swaziland. A native Pennsylvanian, from Dubois, outside Pittsburgh, she jokes that her second favorite saint (after Mother Cabrini) is Roberto Clemente, a right-fielder for the Pittsburgh Pirates from 1955 to 1972, who became the first Latin American in the National Baseball Hall of Fame. When Sister Barbara was 14, she heard Clemente’s story about facing discrimination at a furniture store, and it raised her social consciousness about racial differences and about prejudices. “As a young girl from western Pennsylvania, somehow this man helped me to know God and helped me to know what was right and what was good about social justice.”