Photograph by Robert Scheer
Notre Dame Sister Claire Murphy was the head of the Saratoga Provincial when the Notre Dame Villa was constructed.
By Sue Fagalde Lick
Up Bohlman Road past Madronia Cemetery is a small sign, "Sisters of Notre Dame." What lies beyond the sign is a mystery to most Saratogans. If anything, they picture a cloistered home for nuns who dress in dark habits and veils and spend their days in prayer.
It's more like the headquarters for a good-sized business.
The Notre Dame Provincialate is really four businesses in one. Its primary function is as headquarters for the California province of the Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur, a teaching order that sends teachers all over the world, including Sacred Heart School in Saratoga and Notre Dame High School in San Jose, and to missions in Zaire, South America and the Far East.
The provincialate--not a convent, the nuns insist--also houses Notre Dame Villa, a home for retired and disabled nuns, and Notre Dame Montessori Preschool, and is frequently used by nonprofit groups for conferences and retreats.
Sisters from the Notre Dame order, founded in 1804 by Marie Rose Julie Billiart in the Belgian city of Namur, have owned the property at 14800 Bohlman Road for 92 years, longer than most Saratogans have been around. Over the years, it has been a retreat for teachers, an orphanage, and a training center for nuns. It became administrative headquarters for the Notre Dame sisters' California unit in 1971.
It's like running any medium-sized business, says Sister Barbara Thiella, executive administrator of the provincialate. They worry about goals, finances, personnel, facilities and other managerial concerns. The difference is that the women have devoted their lives to God and to a belief in working for "a world in which everyone fits."
The provincialate, which oversees operations not only in California, but in Washington, Nevada, Alaska and Hawaii, is actually run by an administrative team of three, chosen by members of the order for five-year terms. Thiella, who represents the order to the outside world, shares the running of the provincialate with sisters Jean Stoner and Claudia McTaggert. Most other functions of the provincialate are also run by teams.
"We've been modeling team governance for a number of years," says Sister Margaret Hoffman, who handles public relations for the provincialate. The change from a more hierarchical system run by a Mother Superior is one of many post-Vatican II reforms in the church, she says.
The Notre Dame De Namur order includes 185 sisters in California, 55 in Santa Clara Valley. They staff several area high schools, as well as the College of Notre Dame in Belmont. As with all Catholic religious orders in the United States, the number of new sisters coming into the order has decreased dramatically. Only one sister is currently in training. However, Maryann Osmond, assistant development director, says the order is finding new ways of remaining involved in the community--through the use of lay associates, for example. "The group is not by any means dying out."
New sisters continue to join the order in other parts of the world. There are 100 in Zaire, for example, Hoffman says.
Out of the cloister
Just as the use of the provincialate buildings has changed, so has the role of the sisters who belong to the order. These sisters are not recluses, nor do they wear religious garb. In fact, they would like to let people know they're there and to play a larger role in the community at large.
Monica May, development director for the order, says, "Here we are sitting out here, and no one knows it." She and her staff have begun attending Chamber of Commerce meetings, and they welcome publicity.
Osmond adds, "We're doing things with people, not alone and separate."
The development team goes out to the community to seek financial support both for the retired sisters and the order's ongoing work. Many contributions come from alumni of schools where they have taught, as well as local parishes and others who believe in their work.
The sisters not only teach, but study and lobby on peace and justice issues, publish articles and do public-art projects. Hoffman, a former art teacher, created a colorful image of founding sister Julie Billiart for St. Julie's Church in south San Jose. Sister Terry Davis designed the stations of the cross at Santa Teresa Church and also did the calligraphy on the walls of the chapel at the San Jose Cathedral.
Helping the poor is an underlying theme in their work. They seek to empower the poor through education and other efforts to change the root causes of their poverty. "No matter what we do, it's educative," Thiella says. "We're teachers in our very souls."
Stoner recalls that when she first joined the order at age 17, life for sisters was very different. They wore habits and were not allowed to watch television, read newspapers or leave the convent by themselves.
"You left the world," she says. "You were not to be of the world. Then that whole thing shifted, and there was much more of an understanding that it was not we-they; it's we-we, that we are a part of the world also, and that's why a lot of the changes have occurred. We don't set ourselves apart by habit or by unusual customs the way we did in the past."
Today most of the sisters at the provincialate commute to work from homes elsewhere in the valley, and their work often takes them out into the world. Hoffman travels in a new red Toyota, leased by the order, and communicates with her associates via the Internet (NDDEV@aol.com).
Finding out they're nuns sometimes causes people to do a double take. "We've had the experience over and over again," Hoffman says. "Pretty soon they find out just how ordinary you are."
Not everyone approves of the changes in sisters' ways. "There are still misunderstandings by people out there as to why we aren't the good little sisters in the cute little habit any more," Thiella says.
People still stop swearing when they come around, says Stoner, and some openly tell them, "I wish you were the way you were before."
"It's not what we want to be," she says. "It's very infantile in many ways. I mean, the good sisters can't hear dirty words, they can't get their hands dirty, they're removed. We're in there getting our hands dirty, hearing dirty words, and that's fine."
It's not just the nuns but the whole church that has changed, Thiella says. "We're not apart from, we're in this world. So we have something to say about the values that the world holds. We speak to where we see good, and we speak to where we have concerns about the directions that our fellow citizens, our fellow companions in our time, are taking."
To that end, the sisters frequently collaborate with other religious groups on peace and justice issues. Recently, they have focused their efforts on welfare reform and immigration laws. They also meet to discuss common concerns relating to operation of the order. It's analogous to networking, McTaggert says. It's a lot of meetings, the other sisters add, laughing.
Young and old
Down the road from the headquarters buildings is Notre Dame Villa. A large dog named Pancho Villa, half golden retriever and half collie, lounges on the porch. Sisters Aileen Bermingham and Mary Helms, co-coordinators of the Villa, welcome him and his visitors inside for a tour. Among the 24 residents, several are recuperating from surgery or injuries and will go back to work when they are well. Others are permanent residents who can no longer care for themselves. The Villa is their home.
The nuns at the Villa range in age from 67 to 93. Many of them have lived in the area all their lives, and some have known each other for more than half a century.
The Villa includes a chapel, which serves the whole provincialate population, a large kitchen and dining room, a four-bed ward for those needing constant care and private rooms for the others.
Finances are a problem for retired religious everywhere. In the old days, it was expected that the younger sisters would support the older ones when they could no longer work. But as the number of nuns diminishes, so does the income. Most of the sisters earned only a small stipend when they were working and made no provisions for the future. Says Bermingham, "In those days, it wasn't even considered spiritual to look ahead and lay a nest egg."
Hoffman and other members of the order go out to local churches to ask for donations. The donations are pooled and distributed according to need, she says.
These days, the sisters not only plan for their future financial survival, but they are working on wellness programs to keep them healthier longer, Helms says. Meals in the dining room are low-fat, and the sisters are encouraged to exercise. To that end, they had a swimming pool put in between the Villa and the administrative buildings.
Volunteers from outside the order help the sisters by driving residents to appointments, running errands or assisting with their bookkeeping. They also bring in entertainment and holiday decorations. Schoolchildren frequently remember their former teachers with cards and visits. "People are wonderfully generous," Bermingham says.
At the other end of the age spectrum are the students at the Montessori Preschool up Norton Road. The school currently has 32 children enrolled in the morning session and 25 in the afternoon, ranging in age from 2 years, 9 months, to 5. Although the Notre Dame de Namur order owns and operates the school, lay teachers staff it, using Montessori's methods stressing individualism,
education through the senses, creativity and ecology. Children of previous students are now among those attending the preschool.
On a typical morning, students work at a variety of games and crafts, then join for songs and gestures, followed by playtime on the wooden equipment outside.
Here, as throughout the provincialate, the sisters are at ease with each other, like siblings in a family. They laugh often and tease each other. The property is vast and populated by a half dozen deer. From the meeting rooms, one can hear bird song.
The provincialate is a relaxing place to retreat from the world. Teachers from Bellarmine High School and other local Catholic schools come there for retreats. The Catholic Women's Network, parish religious education staffs and other groups schedule time away from the world there, using the large indoor and outdoor meeting spaces with glorious views of the hills, taking their meals in the Villa dining room and praying in the chapel.
Then they return to the world and their work. The provincialate, once considered far out in the country, is within walking distance of Saratoga Village. "It is the place of sending out," sums up Maryann Osmond. "It's the hub."
This article appeared in the Saratoga News, May 15, 1996.
©1996 Metro Publishing, Inc. All rights reserved