"Get whatever you want. I'm rich."
"Get whatever you want. I'm rich."
Sister Marcianne Bzdon, SSND, chuckles as she fans a handful of Starbucks gift cards in front of her. Wealth is not something Catholic Sisters are known for, but the cards - gifts from students past and present - are currency here, at the Starbucks she's invited her guest to. Sister Marcianne's stash represents something else besides currency at area stores, though. They represent the immeasurable wealth of blessings and joy that a life of teaching has gifted her.
It's been an ordinary life, she insists, much less exciting than the lives of School Sisters who have served in places like Peru and Bolivia. "When I read the Sisters' obits, I think, I didn't do any of that stuff. I just stayed in Northern Illinois."
You Helped Me Find My Voice
Sister Marcianne lives in Sterling, Illinois, today. It's a quiet community about a two-hour drive - mostly past cornfields - west of Chicago. She's lived and served in rural towns around the area for more than 50 years now, and is well known and beloved among Catholic school alumni and parishioners. For them, she's made as important a difference as she would have made to others had she served foreign lands. Proof can be found beyond the cards in her purse or the presents crowded around her Christmas tree. Indeed, her real treasure is in the hugs of children, the expressions of gratitude, and the notes and letters that touch her heart.
"I received a letter from a former student who said she had been scared to death of me when I taught her in eighth grade," Sister Marcianne says. "She remembered when I had her do a reading at Mass. She said I kept telling her, Read louder. Read louder. She said she had been shy, and that it was painful to stand up there in front of everyone. Then she wrote, 'Sister, you helped me find my voice. You helped me become who I am today. Thank you.'"
Transforming Lives
When Sister Marcianne decided to enter the congregation in 1960, she only knew she wanted to teach. She had loved her own teachers, most especially the SSNDs in her own high school, and wanted to be like them, whether in a crowded city classroom or in a small rural church. The ways she's impacted her students might remain unclear - a teacher always takes the value of her service on faith - but it might also be seen as the butterfly effect that moves just enough air to be felt, eventually, across the entire globe.
As a religion teacher and resource person for St. Andrew Catholic School in the adjacent town of Rock Falls, Sister Marcianne is busier than most of the great grandparents of her students. But she's far from interested in retirement, saying she will continue to serve her students there as long as she is able.
Sister Marcianne has much to do yet this afternoon on the final day of her Christmas vacation. She'll return to her tasks in her one-woman convent, a cozy blond brick home nestled amid apartment buildings and private residences along her quiet street. Her front stoop, still decorated for Christmas, hosts a handmade SSND sign, propped up for guests. Her Christmas tree twinkles with small multicolored lights. Her chapel, tucked into the second bedroom, glows with an electric candle, lighting a beautiful creche and a tiny tabernacle.
Tomorrow she'll return for an in-service day, and the children will bounce back into their classrooms after that. It's all of a piece, Sister Marcianne's life, whether in sharing her deep faith and encouragement with a guest over coffee or helping students find their own voices. Indeed, it's a life which, one way or another, will eventually be felt by all.
