Sister M. Marciana Lynch, O.S.F. (96) died on Monday, November 12, 2018 at 9:34 a.m. at St. Francis Convent, Springfield, IL.

Sister Marciana, the former Mary Louise Lynch, was born in Chicago, IL, on October 26, 1922, the daughter of Francis and Agnes (Brouder) Lynch. She entered the Congregation on February 2, 1939 and professed her religious vows on October 4, 1941.

Sister Marciana was a 1944 graduate of St. John’s Hospital School of Nursing. She received a Bachelor of Science degree in 1968 and a Master of Science degree in 1970, both from Indiana University. She served as a maternity staff nurse and supervisor at Hospital Sisters Health System (HSHS) hospitals in Illinois and Wisconsin during the early part of her career. She served as Administrator of St. Mary’s Hospital in Streator, IL, from 1970 until 1974. She was the Director of Materials Management for HSHS in Springfield, IL, from 1976 until 1999 when she became Staff Assistant for Materials Management until 2006.

In addition to her parents, she was preceded in death by two brothers: Brother Julian Lynch, O.F.M. and Walter Lynch, and three sisters: Margaret Byrne, Therese Duke and Agnes Foerster.

She is survived by several nieces and nephews, great-nieces and great-nephews, great-great nieces and great-great nephews, many cousins, and her Franciscan Sisters with whom she shared her life for nearly 80 years.

Visitation will be held on Friday, November 16, 2018 at St. Francis Convent from 4-7 p.m. with a Wake Service at 6:00 p.m. The Eucharistic Celebration and Rite of Christian Burial will be celebrated by Father Jeremiah Lynch, S.J. on Saturday, November 17, 2018 at 10:30 a.m. in St. Clare of Assisi Adoration Chapel at St. Francis Convent. Burial will be in Crucifixion Hill Cemetery.

Staab Funeral Home is in charge of arrangements.

To view her feature story from 2005, please click here.

The Leadership Team of the Hospital Sisters of St. Francis stands in solidarity with opposition by the Leadership Conference of Women Religious to the proposed Affordable Clean Energy Rule. We have committed ourselves to a life of meeting the needs of the poor, ill, marginalized and vulnerable. The proposed Rule would significantly weaken the progress made to protect the population of the world from increasing carbon pollution, rapid climate change and the health of all people, especially the most vulnerable.

The proposed Rule allows each state to decide if and how they would reduce their greenhouse gas emissions from burning fossil fuel, placing the health of all people at significantly greater risk. The United States has historically been the world’s largest carbon polluter. There is ample evidence readily available to show that the pollution we have already produced is a danger to all people. Further weakening of our laws for control of pollution will only exacerbate the problem.

The climate is a common good given to all and we are all responsible to care for it. Each of us are called by God to protect this common home by caring for all of Creation. Blessed Pope Paul VI pointed out in his address to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, “the most extraordinary scientific advances, the most amazing technical abilities, the most astonishing economic growth, unless they are accompanied by authentic social and moral progress will definitely turn against man.” (Address to the FAO on the 25th anniversary of its Institution [16 November 1970], 4: AAS 62 [1970], 833.)

In his encyclical, Laudato Si’, Pope Francis reminds us of our biblical exhortation to live in right relationship and cooperate with God’s design for his world. We urgently oppose adoption of the proposed Rule that threatens the health and safely of all people and the earth itself.

The Leadership Team of the Hospital Sisters of St. Francis
Springfield, Illinois
November 1, 2018

The Leadership Team of the Hospital Sisters of St. Francis stands in solidarity with the opposition by the Leadership Conference of Women Religious to the proposed changes to regulations for immigrants entitled Inadmissibility on Public Charge Grounds. We have committed ourselves to a life of meeting the needs of the poor, ill, marginalized and vulnerable.

This legislation would impose impossible restrictions on immigrants and their families, particularly those with lower income. It would increase difficulties in obtaining lawful immigration status and place further barriers to obtaining needed benefits for which their children qualify. Further restriction of obtaining legal immigration status and ability to care for their basic needs, their basic right to human dignity and their desire to be a contributing member of our communities is unjust and not in keeping with the values for which our country was founded. The restrictions would increase poverty, disease, homelessness and decrease access to education and general well-being. No one should be forced to choose between medical care, housing and food and endangering their eligibility for possible legal permanent residency.

The obvious attempt to target the most vulnerable within the immigrant population is completely contrary to our faith and creates further threats to the values of our country. Our faith encourages us to welcome the stranger and care for the vulnerable among us. Our national values lead us to work always for the welfare of children and families and to promote the common good.

We encourage all people of faith to advocate for protection of immigrants and to object to this unreasonable and harmful proposal.

The Leadership Team of the Hospital Sisters of St. Francis
Springfield, Illinois
October 24, 2018

The Hospital Sisters of St. Francis welcomed five new Franciscan Associates on October 14 during the morning liturgy in St. Francis of Assisi Church. The new Associates are Susie Ferguson and David Kerwin, Springfield, IL; Helen Essenpreis, Breese, IL; and Karen Rehkemper and Sheila Weber, Highland, IL.

“Years ago the Church found ways to welcome men and women who desired a way to deepen their baptismal commitment by accepting God’s call to live according to Jesus’ gospel but not profess vows,” explained Nancy Davis, Associate Coordinator. “One of these ways was through an Associate relationship to a religious community and our Associates seek to model themselves in some way in the spirit of St. Francis and St. Clare of Assisi and the example of our Hospital Sisters of St. Francis,” explained Davis.

These five Associates join the Hospital Sisters’ family of 153 Associates who embrace Franciscan values and the Hospital Sisters’ healing spirit while bringing the compassion of Jesus to others in ways that fit their lifestyle. Associates meet monthly to share their faith on spiritual and Franciscan topics, share in the Hospital Sisters’ spirituality and join with them in prayer, community, celebration and ministry. Associates do not take vows.

Founded in 1987, Associates of the Hospital Sisters of St. Francis is a ministry that is open to baptized Christians 18 years or older with gatherings in Decatur, Effingham, Highland, Springfield, and Streator, IL; and Eau Claire, Green Bay, and Sheboygan, WI. For more information, please click here.

Front row (left to right): Sister Ann Mathieu, Karen Rehkemper, Sheila Weber, Nancy Davis, Associate Coordinator, David Kerwin, Sister Maureen O'Connor, Provincial Superior, Susie Ferguson, Helen Essenpreis, and Sister Mary Ann Minor

Top row (left to right): Sister Marilyn McCormick and Sister MaryAnn Falbe

Associate Helen Essenpreis (Breese, IL) with her sponsor, Sister Mary Ann Minor, OSF

Associate Susie Ferguson (Springfield, IL) with her sponsor, Sister MaryAnn Falbe, OSF

Associate David Kerwin (Springfield, IL) with his sponsor, Sister Ann Mathieu, OSF

Associate Karen Rehkemper (Highland, IL) with her sponsor, Sister Marilyn McCormick, OSF

Associate Sheila Weber (Highland, IL) with her sponsor, Sister Marilyn McCormick, OSF

Yesterday in a ceremony at St. Peter’s Square, Vatican City, Pope Francis named seven new saints and one of them has been pictured in St. Francis of Assisi Church for 55 years.

Shortly after Pope Paul VI was elected on June 21, 1963, a redecorating was planned for St. Francis of Assisi Church with Moroder-International (Milwaukee, WI). Stanislaus Estkowski, the lead artist, was to paint a mural of the new pope above the altar canopy along with the two preceding Popes: John XXIII, Pius XII and Saint Peter.

Saint Pope Paul VI oversaw the closing of the Church's pivotal Second Vatican Council, and issued the landmark encyclical that cemented the church's opposition to birth control. "On July 25, 1968, Pope Paul VI stunned Catholics around the world with his announcement of Humanae Vitae, "Of Human Life," a document in which he forcefully reaffirmed the church's previously stated position on the use of artificial birth control, calling it "intrinsically wrong." "'We are obliged once more to declare that [methods for] the direct interruption of the generative process,' the pope wrote, '... are to be absolutely excluded as lawful means of regulating the number of children.'

"Humane Vitae came as a surprise to many Vatican observers. Though an encyclical issued in 1930 already prohibited birth control, a papal commission had been assembled to revisit that ban, and a majority of the commission members suggested that it be dropped."

The Vatican calls Paul VI the "pope of modernity" for his influence on changes in "liturgy, seminary formation, theological study, and many other areas of ecclesiastical life."

In solidarity with the statement by Daniel Cardinal DiNardo of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops regarding our current Administration’s immigration policy of intolerance toward asylum seekers, the leadership team of the Hospital Sisters of St. Francis join with other people of faith in seeking to end the radically unjust immigration policies. Recently the cruel practices of separation of parents and children have been replaced by detention of whole families. Anti-immigration forces continue to fan fears and blame the victims of horrible violence in their countries of origin.

As women of faith, we challenge our national leaders to assume responsibility for ending our current inhumane immigration policies, and, instead, to focus on ending policies that are the cause of such desperate needs for people to seek safety in a strange and foreign land.

In 1875, 20 of our Sisters emigrated to the United States at the invitation of Bishop Baltes of the Alton, Illinois Diocese to provide health care to the German immigrants of the diocese who had fled Germany because of the cruel practices of the Dictator Bismarck. Our Congregation honors its immigrant beginnings and reaffirms its commitment to comprehensive immigration reform.

The Leadership Team of the Hospital Sisters of St. Francis
Springfield, Illinois
July 13, 2018