In the silence of prayer, the telephone rings

By Peter Finney Jr.
Clarion Herald
The convent of the Sister Servants of Mary on Perlita Street in Gentilly is church-quiet during the day because most of the community’s 10 nuns are sleeping, physically preparing their bodies for the overnight shift that lies ahead in which they will keep prayerful vigil with the sick and dying of the Archdiocese of New Orleans.

In their waking hours, when most of the world is asleep, the sisters are nursing angels in white habits.

So, when Tammy Maginnis, a retired nurse from St. James Major Parish in New Orleans, read one day in the Clarion Herald that the sisters had established a lay fraternity of women and men who could help them expand their ministry of Christian presence to the seriously ill, she set the paper aside on a table near her stove, because something told her as she cooked another meal for her husband Bob that a seed had been planted.

The call took root
The story sat there, folded, for two or three months, rising imperceptibly like leavened dough.

“I was actually in the adoration chapel at St. Dominic, and I was like, ‘What do you want me to do now?’” Maginnis recalled. “I had the time. I really just looked at the Eucharist and I was like, ‘What do you want me to do? Tell me.’”

When Maginnis called the sisters to ask about the fraternity, she was invited to a meeting. Eventually, two other women, Leasa Comeaux, a retired Army nurse from St. Bonaventure Parish in Waggaman, and Johnnie Cole, an 83-year-old retired math and science teacher from Corpus Christi-Epiphany Parish in New Orleans, formed a second cohort of lay affiliates to join five others who had launched the ministry in 2021.

After the three newest inductees made promises Aug. 12 in the sisters’ glistening chapel to serve in the ministry of presence to others, Maginnis recalled what struck her most about her 18-month formation. Each affiliate – who is not required to have any medical background – is asked to spend eight hours a week, usually during the day, at the side of a sick or incapacitated person in the person’s home, giving family members a respite from providing around-the-clock care.

One day a week, the affiliates also spend three hours at the convent with Sister Lucero Garcia, the fraternal coordinator, discussing the history of the nursing order, its founding in 1851 in Madrid by St. Maria Soledad, praying over the Bible and poring over the “Catechism of the Catholic Church.”

‘Jesus is calling’
Because most of the sisters are sleeping during the day, there are no other sounds.

Then, in the silence, the telephone rings.

“Their phone rings all the time,” Maginnis said. “When we are in class or in the chapel, we can hear the phone. It rings a lot. A lot.”

Each call, Sister Lucero says, “is a sign that Jesus is calling.”

“We treat each call as if it is Jesus calling, and we are called to be at the foot of the cross with him,” she said.

As a seasoned senior, Cole brings Communion weekly to three Corpus Christi-Epiphany parishioners, but she felt called to do even more after hearing the sisters make a presentation at her church.

“I do a limited thing for people – I sit with them, talk with them,” said Cole, who goes to a nursing facility to visit with one woman, who is not Catholic. “She is concerned about going back to her house, and I try to convince her that she’s in a better place. I pray for her to adjust to her new life, because she’s in a better place. There’s a limit to what I can do, but my biggest concern is making sure they are ready to transition from this life to the next.”

‘Giving back’ is in her DNA
Comeaux’s nursing experience in the Army took her inside M.A.S.H. units during Operation Desert Storm in Saudi Arabia in 1990, and she also worked emergency room shifts at the former Charity Hospital trauma center. Her pastor, Father Francis Offia, is the chaplain of the Sister Servants of Mary and introduced her to the sisters.

“I’m a combat veteran, and I’m one who always wanted to do something to give to the community,” Comeaux said. “This was something I could do to impact the community.”

Comeaux’s patient is an elderly woman who suffered a stroke and is not ambulatory. Comeaux drives from the West Bank to Slidell one day a week to offer eight hours of care, which includes making meals, providing hygiene and using a Hoyer lift to transport her patient from her bed to a recliner.

“We move her into the living room so she can watch TV, because she usually likes to watch a religious channel,” Comeaux said. “She sits up in the chair and eats her meals. When she’s not eating, I sit there and talk to her and pray with her, or we just have conversations. You’re not coming in as a medical person – you’re caring for the whole person.”

Comeaux sees the benefits of the sisters’ ministry extending far beyond the patients.

“For that one day, her son doesn’t have to be involved with any of the details at all,” Comeaux said. “It releases him to concentrate on whatever he needs to do for the day. It allows him to take his son to lunch.”

Free gift of God
Everything the sisters and the associates do is a free gift of God, said Mother Angelica Ramos. There is never a charge to the family.

“It is free because, well, it is this sharing of the love that God gives us,” Mother Angelica said.

“The need is great, sometimes two or three calls a day,” she added. “There are periods of time when the phone rings constantly. I just wish I could be – how do you say? – in two or three places at the same time because I have so many sick people.

“We go to anyone who has the need. It can be a little kid, a young person, an older person, a man, woman, any kind of disease. We don’t have a preference for social status or anything. It is anybody who needs the care.”

More lay members coming
Another cohort will be launched soon that will have at least eight lay members – four of whom will serve Spanish-speaking patients.

Maginnis, who heard the call to her new ministry by reading the newspaper, says God is full of surprises. Mother Angelica asked Maginnis if she could bring four nuns to the airport to catch a flight, but she wasn’t available. So, she asked her husband Bob if he could do it for her.

After Bob came home, Tammy asked how it went.

“They laugh a lot,” Bob said. “They were always laughing.”

Tammy has heard that sheer joy before.

“The sisters do laugh,” she said. “It’s different when you hear a nun giggle.”

Bob Maginnis is still working full-time, but the nuns have their eyes on him as a future foot soldier in their ministry of presence, which has blessed the archdiocese for more than a century.

“Bob’s all into it,” Tammy said. “He’s had serious discussions with Sister Lucero. The sisters know Bob. We’re going to get him in soon.”

For more information on the lay fraternity of the Sister Servants of Mary, call (504) 282-5549.

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