Colette’s Journey – A New Moses
by Sister Benedicta Dega, FSSJ

Colette, you are a second Moses in the pattern of your life,

With a focus of life seen only by a few.

Prophetic even as a young woman –

Slowly preparing for life’s journey

At home, in school, in the Borromean Convent

Listening to the inner stirrings of your heart –

The Lord began to slowly lay out a plan.

With eager heart in affirmation you replied

And leaving family, friends and all behind,

Little did you know that Poland’s land you’d never enter again.

You crossed the ocean – unlike the Red Sea walk of Moses …

Your journey lasted those ten days of hardship –

Yet filled with joy and prayer

As at Hoboken, New Jersey, your ship, The Allen, docked.

Your journey by train to Pittsburgh saw you arrive on Palm Sunday’s feast.

Those “final farewells” before your New World Mission Call

Were the last – unknown to you.

Yet eager and with zeal,

Your heart opened to the journey of the unknown.

Like Moses of yore

Your “desert journey” with its moments of sadness and joy

Became the foundation for the new Franciscan Order

that God had planned.

And as his prophetic servant

You connected the dots on the blueprint of His Will.

Your journeys, like Moses’ seemed like a giant circle

As each year found more and more future Sisters who sought entrance

Each with similar vision and similar desire to proclaim His message.