By Eileen Connelly, OSU

ARCHDIOCESE - When she worked as a staff writer for The Catholic Telegraph, Sister of Notre Dame de Namur Therese Shuler used her "way with words" to write articles related to a variety of topics about the local church and beyond. Now she is looking forward to using her God-given creativity and skills in service to her community as director of communications for the congregational mission office.

CT FILE PHOTO

Sister of Notre Dame de Namur Therese Shuler

Sister Therese describes her present position as a combination of "people work and paper work," that includes establishing and maintaining relationships with school principals and directors of agencies who want NDMVA members, recruiting and placement. She also fulfills various human resource duties and is responsible for collecting and collating data on the numbers of children and adults served, as well as data that tracks the progress of the students and clients. In addition, she coaches the members, most of whom are recent college graduates, as they deal with the challenges of service.

Aware of her background in communications, which included previous work as a writer in the development office of the Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur's Ohio Province, the congregational leadership team approached Sister Therese about the new position in September of 2006. "All the parties involved discussed and reflected at length, and the answer that came was 'yes,' " said Sister Therese. "I do have a strong sense of God calling me to make this move."

She has already been doing parts of the job part-time, with occasional commutes to Ipswich, Mass., where her community's congregational mission office is located. Sister Therese will relocate to Ipswich to assume her new position fulltime in the near future. "My responsibilities will cover both internal communications within the SNDdeN world and external communications that go to donors, the media and the other "publics" with whom we want to communicate," she explained. "I'm the editor of our congregational magazine, Good Works, and provide content for our website, currently being redesigned. I'll also be doing grant writing. At the request of province communications personnel, I help them prepare press releases. I oversee internal publications, such as the congregational directory and an annual lenten booklet."

There are several very exciting things about this new position, Sister Therese said. "One is that I'll get to meet so many SNDs, especially Sisters from other countries, because many of them come to the office in Ipswich. Another exciting thing is that, in terms of my 'field,' which is journalism/communications, it's the next level of responsibility."

The most exciting and challenging aspect of her new ministry, said Sister Therese, is the faith that her congregation has demonstrated in her abilities by asking her to fill this role. "It's very important to me that my Sisters asked me to let them use these gifts of communication. Creativity with words and photos is one of the main means through which I know God's presence in my life. I also meet Him consciously sometimes during interviews, when the person I'm interviewing lets me walk with him or her on 'holy ground.' "