All About Sister Geraldine Muller, SSJ.
Please provide your name, religious order and current ministry.
My name is Sister Geraldine Muller SSJ. I usually go by my nickname, Sister Gerrie. I am a Sister of St. Joseph from Chestnut Hill, Philadelphia. I am presently part of the preaching team giving retreats and days of prayer with the Redemptorist priests at San Alfonso Retreat House in Long Branch, NJ.
Details of your youth – town where you grew up; parish, family experiences.
I am the middle child of three daughters born to my parents, George and Gerrie Muller. I originally grew up in Elkins Park, a suburb of Philadelphia, PA. Our home was a small bungalow (originally a chicken coop!) surrounded by acres of fields and woods. My aunts, uncles and cousins as well as tenants lived on the property in a carriage house and mansion. At the bottom of a hill were groves with picnic tables, a pavilion for dancing and the private swimming pool club my father owned. Any summer family vacations had to be postponed to the fall when we would pack the station wagon and head to Long Beach Island for fishing, seafood, and time on the beach. At home, we went to St. James Church and school. At that time, it was a small parish with the school on the upper floors of the building and the church on the first floor. Some of the younger students were in combined grade classrooms. This is where I first met the Sisters of St. Joseph.
In the middle of seventh grade, my family moved to Southampton in Bucks County, PA. I was immersed in nature again as our new home of several acres had twelve gardens, a strawberry patch, creek and woods. Our new, large parish and school was Our Lady of Good Counsel. A year and a half later, I was the first freshman class at the newly opened Archbishop Wood High School in Warminster, PA. We were never really treated like freshman since we were involved with the faculty starting this new venture and in creating traditions. We piloted new books and courses with the latest theological thinking, Vatican II documents, modern math, science, and social justice issues of the day. We did not have the same curriculum as my peers in other Catholic High Schools.
How old were you when you first thought you would like to pursue a religious vocation and what contributed to that thinking?
I actually first resisted thoughts about becoming a sister, considering myself as clearly not “nun material” in high school. Part of my resistance was influenced by stereotypical images of sisters and thoughts about living a confined life. I didn’t see myself as a teacher. I imagined myself as married with children. I must admit that God pursued me like “The Hound of Heaven.” Surprisingly, when I consulted a priest chaplain about my struggle, he actually discouraged me and told me to “look in the mirror!”
On the other hand, I was attracted to the sisters who taught me in high school. They were intelligent, inspiring women who expanded my world view and were enthusiastic about the social justice issues of the day and the possibilities that Vatican II opened for the Church.
I felt like I had three options: (1) Ignore God’s pursuit of me, (2) Try it out and find out I didn’t belong or they would ask me to leave, and (3) Stop fighting it, surrender and open myself to what God was seeking to do in and through me. I think I chose somewhere between 2 and 3, later embracing 3.
My grandmother, who lived with us in her final years before she died, told me about a dream she had one night where she saw smiling sisters offering me something like a book. I suppose Nanny had a vision of my future before I was aware of it.
What year did you first enter religious life?
I entered my community in 1968. The 60’s were a time of great upheaval.
What is your favorite part of serving God in a religious community?
My favorite part of serving God in the Sisters of St. Joseph is the way in which we strive to be open to God’s grace through contemplation and courageous action to respond to the ever-changing needs of God’s people and all creation. Our mission is that “That all may be one. We live and work so that all people may be united with God and one another.” This “union-ing” love is so critically needed in our neighborhoods, country, and world today. Throughout the years we have learned among ourselves and those with whom we minister that unity does not mean uniformity, but rather a unity through our diversity.
We have a saying, “Where one of us is, all of us are.” So, when one of our sisters is at the UN speaking to the global family, providing support and healing to women who have been trafficked, involved in prison ministry and reform, helping immigrants on the road to citizenship, accompanying grieving families to court who have lost a loved one to violence, or providing addiction counseling, I am with her, we are with her. I know my own life is enriched, stretched and supported by sisters in my community.
What has surprised you the most about your vocation?
In the beginning, I was surprised by how I could influence change in my community. I was forever stuffing “the suggestion box” with ideas, some of which were implemented while I was a postulant. At the end of that early stage, I was asked to write an evaluation of my experience and to make recommendations which became part of the groups which followed me.
Who knew that years later I would be the Vocation Director for the congregation interviewing and discerning with young adults how God was calling them to be single, married, a member of a religious community, or ordained priesthood? The word “vocation” had expanded to include all vocations in the Church from our initial baptismal calling.
I never imagined that my initial thoughts about leading a “confined life” would turn into traveling all over the country, experiencing the Church expressed in multiple ways and among various cultures. There was a shift from communities being isolated from one another to more inter-community meetings, conferences, shared programming, resources and formation.
I assumed that I would live out my days with the sisters in my own community. Immediately after professing final vows in 1976, I participated in an “experiment”. It was in the early years of schools merging. One school in Ardmore was staffed by the Sisters of St. Joseph and the other in Bryn Mawr by the Franciscan Sisters of Philadelphia (known then as the Glen Riddle Franciscans). Not only were the two schools combined, but both communities sent sisters to teach and live together. Neither community gave us guidelines how to do this. We needed to share with one another what we felt was essential to living religious life and what decisions and things we would hold in common. Rather than a “third way,” we discovered that living together only enhanced and emphasized our unique charisms. We were doubly enriched by the resources and offerings of both communities. I lived in this inter-community living and ministry “experiment” for eleven years.
What do you most want people to know about consecrated life?
Consecrated life is about God’s passionate love for Earth and all humanity. Our vocation is a lifelong commitment to God and has a prophetic role in the Church and world inviting and challenging ourselves and others to right relationships and responding to unaddressed, unmet needs. While most people tend to identify us with a particular traditional founding ministry (education, helping those who are poor, health care) or institution (school, shelter, hospital), this has expanded over the years. In many instances our partners in ministry have taken over their administration and continued the mission of those works. Our faith, resources and energies impelled by God’s Spirit turn us to the next phase of our lives and new challenges.
Even though each one of us may be focused on a particular ministry, we reach beyond that to whatever current circumstances require our attention i.e. when teaching in Harrisburg, I responded to the Vietnamese refugees (the “boat people”) at Indiantown Gap a few miles away; while in Vocation Ministry with young adults, I learned the plight of coal miners in Appalachia and advocated for them and land reclamation while working with Habitat for Humanity to provide affordable housing in rural areas; during time in pastoral ministry, I joined with others to respond to the social, physical, educational and spiritual needs of seasonal migrant workers and their children on our farms. Many of the elders in our communities model for us a ministry of prayer and of being present. They pray for local and world situations, call, email, and write letters to corporations and policy makers.
Women and men in diverse communities are joining together today to give a clearer, stronger voice in response to the hunger, poverty, oppression, injustice, violence and –isms of our day. I am hopeful, trusting, and encouraged as the future of consecrated life is constantly emerging in God’s hands as it always has.