Sisters find habit hard to break

Together they celebrate 125 years of combined service

By Rob Cullivan

The Gresham Outlook, Jul 27, 2010, Updated Jul 27, 2010

Jim Clark / The Outlook

Catholic Sisters Anne Clare Keeler, Kateri Visocky and Kathleen Ann Cieslak live with six other nuns in Bridal Veil and are devoted to a life of prayer, work and study.

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In addition to having taught music, Sister Kateri Visocky, 70, composes classically flavored liturgical songs for her Catholic women’s congregation, the Franciscan Sisters of the Eucharist.

“I don’t do rock ’n’ roll or green grass,” she says.

You mean bluegrass?

“Just checking,” she adds with a laugh as Sister Kathleen Ann Cieslak, 68, and Sister Anne Clare Keeler, 65, chuckle as well.

The three women, who live in a convent in Bridal Veil, share their wit, warmth and faith as they note they are jointly celebrating the anniversaries of their respective entrances into the religious life this Saturday, July 31.

The day begins with an 11 a.m. Mass at St. Henry Catholic Church, 346 N.W. First St., followed by a private reception at the convent from 2 to 4 p.m.

Sisters Kateri and Kathleen Ann are marking 50 years each as nuns, whereas Sister Anne Clare is marking 25 years of religious life.

Their order is best known in these parts for its association with Franciscan Montessori Earth School and St. Francis Academy in Southeast Portland, where Sister Kathleen Ann serves as administrator.

Sister Anne Clare has taught at the innovative school on and off for three decades, and Sister Kateri taught there for three years, and studies theology in Indiana when she’s not in Oregon.

Sister Kathleen Ann says her job fulfilled a childhood dream, in a roundabout way, given her students are “family.”

“I always wanted at least 25 children,” she says with a laugh. “But now I’ve got over 300!”

Moment of truth

All three women grew up in religious families, and credited their home environment, as well as positive encounters with nuns when they were little, for planting the seeds of their vocations.

However, all three also had to struggle a bit before — and after — they entered religious life to discern what exactly they believed God meant them to do.

Sister Kathleen Ann wanted to enter a convent when she was in eighth grade — and in those days, it was common for teenagers to enter the religious life in high school.

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