The Heart of the Matter
Remembering a Marian House Blessing
Spring, 2008
By Rita R. Martin, Marian House Intake and Volunteer Coordinator, and a parishioner of St. Cecilia, Baltimore
Though petite in stature, Sister Melvina Bennett, SSND, was large in life. She was a most impressive, warm, and congenial person whose love of God was reflected in her daily life and her interaction with others. Whether she was in her role as nun, social worker, spiritual companion, administrator, chaplain, party planner, cook or friend, you could be assured that she was giving her utmost to the role and the tasks at hand. She gave credence to the saying, “bloom where you are planted.”
Sister Melvina L. Bennett, a School Sisters of Notre Dame, died on July 23. She wrote: “I grew up [in South Carolina] around the time when Jim Crow was dying and the civil rights movement was emerging. The church was not only the enter of spiritual guidance, enrichment and support, but also the place for community gatherings and social action. As a member of a religious Protestant family, I found myself constantly surrounded by individuals whose lives animated the Gospel values espoused by their faith. While I never dreamed that I would one day enter a religious order, I always felt the need to be connected to a faith community.”
Coming from a strong Baptist background that shaped her profound love of God, she converted to Roman Catholicism while a student at Hampton where she earned a bachelor’s degree. She then journeyed to Baltimore, later saying, “I arrived in Baltimore with $65, self determination and a prayer to be able to survive my new and strange surroundings.” Indeed, she did and even surpassed her own expectations in holding administrative and managerial positions in the Department of Social Services, and in earning a master’s degree in social work from Howard University.
Known more familiarly as Sister Mel, she joined the School Sisters of Notre Dame in 1981. Robert Wicks, author and professor, says that friends should make us “whole and holy.” We need them to be “prophets to help us with perspective, passion and ordinariness, cheerleaders to help us with pain, harassers to support, encourage, tease, and guides to be a companion and wise person for us.” Mel was that kind of friend.
We met at a “Sisters in the Struggle” retreat in 1993. In 1994 we became co-workers when she joined the staff at Marian House, a residential program for homeless women. By 1997, we had become friends and had started to learn and be a part of each other’s story. This bonding in friendship made each of us more “whole and holy.” I realize that I experience my faith through the people God has placed in my life to reveal his presence to me; be they in my life for a moment, for years or even for a lifetime, if through them I can see God, my faith grows. Sister Mel was this person for me and many others, especially the residents at Marian House.
Each resident can lovingly share story upon story about Sister Mel. Each can also speak of the difference she made in her life as “prophet, cheerleader, harasser and guide.” She was remembered at a Marian House memorial event as “a nun and so much more.” Among those who shared their reflections, most remembered always being at peace around her and feeling valued as a person even when she was correcting them. She had a natural, razor-sharp wit and she effortlessly delivered her one-liners without even cracking a smile. She was not even trying to be humorous…it was just Mel. That’s talent. That’s love.
Sister Mel has left a legacy of Christ-centered friendship and love for all who had the blessed privilege of knowing her. This brief tribute cannot begin to tell the story of this sister from South Carolina. She was a humble and ordinary woman who allowed God to use her in extraordinary ways to touch the lives of many. I give thanks that I was one of the many whose life was touched by Sister Melvina L. Bennett, SSND.