August 19, 2011
Sister Ann Marie Butler
Spiritual direction component to be offered at Mater Dei H.S.
Daughter of Charity Sister Ann Marie Butler displays her book, “Many and Beautiful Things: Small Group Spiritual Guidance.” She will be working with juniors at Mater Dei High School in Evansville, offering small group spiritual guidance. (Message photo by Mary Ann Hughes) Click for a larger version.
By MARY ANN HUGHES (Message staff writer)
Sister Ann Marie Butler hopes that her students remember one thing from their year with her: The words from Isaiah 43:3,4. I am the Lord, your God. You are precious in my eyes and glorious and . . . I love you.
She’s celebrating her golden jubilee this year as a Daughter of Charity. During those 50 years, she has served as a teacher and principal, and most recently, she has served as a spiritual director in a Catholic school in Madison, Miss.
This year, she’s joining the faculty at Mater Dei High School in Evansville, and her responsibilities there will include providing a spiritual direction component for junior theology courses, according to Timothy Dickel, executive director.
She will also provide faith development experiences for faculty and staff, and assist with retreat activities. “Her position is being supported through the Daughters of Charity Foundation, and we are grateful for their help in advancing our mission.”
She was born in Mississippi, the sixth of eight children, and educated by the Daughters of Charity. “I just loved the Daughters,” she said. “They were so happy. They took us to visit the poor, and I wanted to do what they did.”
No traces remain in her voice from her southern childhood, perhaps because she has served with the Daughters mostly in northern states, including 20 years in Chicago.
She recently wrote a book, “Many and Beautiful Things: Small Group Spiritual Guidance,” which she will be using as her guide in her work with students at Mater Dei.
About once a month each junior will have the opportunity to be a part of a small group of three to five students which will meet with Sister Ann Marie. “It won’t be a discussion group,” she said, explaining that she will “work with one student at a time and the others will be prayerful observers.”
She will encourage the students to pray for one another and assure them she is praying for them as well.
The small group meetings will begin with a questionnaire as students are asked to write a description of their prayer life and their relationship with God. She will share the words of Thomas Merton “For me to be a saint means to be myself” and then help them “find their true selves.”
She plans to teach the students lectio divino which is often described as listening with the ear of the heart, and she will talk with them about the unconditional love of God. “I tell them if they remember one thing, remember Isaiah 43:3,4: I am the Lord, your God. You are precious in my eyes and glorious and . . . I love you.”
As the year progresses, she will encourage her students to “allow room for the guidance of God.” She will do that by introducing them to the words of Daughter of Charity co-founder St. Louise de Marillac: “Do not be upset if things are not as you would have them to be for a long time to come. Do the little you can very peacefully and calmly so as to allow room for the guidance of God in your lives. Do not worry about the rest.”
And during the year, she will introduce them to the Ignatian process of spiritual discernment which begins with prayer and asking God for honesty of heart. The students will be taught to “pray to be willing to leave the outcome in God’s hands,” and then answer the question “what is the issue you wish to discern or the decision you wish to make?”
They will be shown how to “sit in prayer with it,” and to “pay attention to any insight or emotion” they have.
She will tell them to “list two or three choices that would answer your question” and then to “make a list of pros and cons for each choice.”
Then they will try to “see the balance between the head and the heart as well as their intuition.” They will be encouraged to see both the “consolation” and the “desolation” connected to each possible decision, and then they will be encouraged to make their decisions.
It’s a process that she hopes they will use throughout their adult lives as they choose their colleges and careers and as they make decisions about their vocations.
During the year, she will talk with the students about service, reminding them that “it’s not just that you serve, it’s how you serve, it’s how you see Christ in the poor.
“I talk about empathy,” she said, explaining that she will ask her students, “What would you want someone to say to you? What would Jesus say?”
There will also be discussion about the four vocations: married life, single life, priesthood and religious life because she believes “we are all called by God.”
She will share the words of St. Elizabeth Ann Seton “We must pray literally without ceasing in every occurrence and employment of our lives” as she teaches them ways to pray using centering prayer and the psalms.
She believes the program will offer students the opportunity to “deepen their relationships with God, to enhance their prayer lives, and to learn to make good decisions.”