News & Events
Sisters welcome new affiliate; Pittsburgh native now in Texas
January 27, 2010.
 Pittsburgh native Betsy Bissonette was welcomed to the CSFN affiliacy program at a special ceremony Saturday, Jan. 9, in Grand Prairie, TX. The affiliacy ritual was held on the last weekend of the liturgical Christmas season, the feast of the Baptism of the Lord.
The new affiliate’s first contact with the Sisters of the Holy Family of Nazareth (CSFN) was through Sr. Dorothy Pawlus, the parish life collaborator at St. Bartholomew Parish in Penn Hills, PA, since 2007. (A PLC handles most of the duties of a pastor except the administration of the sacraments.) While Betsy was finishing her PhD program in physical therapy from Duquesne University, she was involved at St. Bart’s as a youth minister in the Life Teen program. An active parishioner, she had been involved with Life Teen since her own high school years; Colleen Ford, St. Bart’s director of the program, has been a spiritual mentor to Betsy through the years. With introductions to CSFNs in Pittsburgh and Philadelphia through Sr. Dorothy, Betsy participated in several discernment weekends in Philadelphia from 2007 – 2009 and in the Vocation Summit at the Des Plaines (IL) Provincialate last year. For the past 18 months, she has served as a physical therapist at St. Margaret’s Hospital in Pittsburgh. But she knew that she wanted to spend her time as an affiliate at a convent with other people in initial formation, so began a job search in Philadelphia and Texas. She recently began a new position at Methodist Rehab Hospital in Dallas. She is living at Immaculate Conception Convent in Grand Prairie, where she will complete her affiliacy. Eventually, she hopes also to volunteer as a youth minister at one of the local parishes. The CSFN novitiate is nearby, attached to Good Shepherd convent in Grand Prairie. Recognizing that discernment is a lengthy process, the CSFNs in the U.S. established a program of ‘affiliacy.’ While postulancy is the official entry into the congregation, affiliacy allows an inquirer to get a closer look at community life. Typically, the affiliate lives with a community of sisters while she continues her discernment. She is responsible for her own employment or work within one of the CSFN sponsored ministries; she covers her own financial and healthcare requirements. Each affiliate is accompanied by a formation director who invites her to deeper personal and spiritual growth and who introduces her to the Nazareth charism and mission. An affiliate may reside in any local CSFN community; the period of affiliacy may last for up to two years. For more information about discernment and the CSFNs, please contact Sr. Michele Vincent Fisher, national vocation director, at VOC4NAZ@aol.com or 215-335-6387. Photo: Sr. Dorothy Pawlus, left, and and Colleen Ford, both of St. Bartholomew's Parish in Penn Hills, PA, join new CSFN affiliate Betsy Bissonnette at the creche in Grand Prairie, TX. Betsy was accepted into the affiliacy program on the last weekend of the liturgical Christmas season, when the Church celebrates the Baptism of the Lord. To see more photos from the affiliacy ceremony, please click here
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