It is unlikely that Mother Stephen and Sister Petronella Noonan (sisters to each other) thought of themselves as prophetic when they were sent to Carthage, Mississippi, in 1949 to teach poor black children in a two room school house. Mother Jean Marie and her council wouldn’t have used the word to describe their response to the request from the Missionary Servants of the Most Holy Trinity (Trinitarians) to send sisters to help with their mission.

The sisters who followed were not calling themselves prophetic as they responded to and adapted to the times in which they lived. St. Joachim School served the poor black children in Leake County, a poor county in a very poor state. The church was called St. Anne’s – that was for the white people. Mass for the blacks was held in the school. Only after fire destroyed the school would the accommodation be made for blacks to attend Mass in the church (at a separate Mass). Nineteen sisters served in that mission before St. Joachim’s was burned to the ground by the Ku Klux Klan in the summer of 1966. Those women witnessed to the gospel by treating all with respect and reverence whether they were received with love or shunned with suspicion or evident hatred.

Mother Joan Marie and her council would hardly have called themselves prophetic when they made the decision to send the sisters back for the opening of the school year in 1966. Those three sisters hadn’t heard the term prophetic when they taught the children in an old church and a government trailer. They probably knew they were doing the right thing when they stood by the pastor when he announced that “next Sunday Mass will be at nine o’clock” —to the blacks at the 8:00 Mass and the whites at the 10:00! But they would not have said it was prophetic.

When it became clear that rebuilding a school would only continue a segregated system, three sisters made themselves available to teach in the public schools. Rejected by Leake County, they went to a neighboring county and were hired as a solution to the school board’s dilemma of having to send white teachers to a predominately black school in the country. They continued to live in Leake County and serve the parishioners of St. Anne’s, loving tenderly, acting justly, and walking humbly with the God who strengthened them. By this time, the mission had expanded to the Choctaw Indian community and the sisters spent Saturdays visiting and teaching religion to these children.

When the school authorities in Leake County saw that the sisters were not on a conversion mission, but were acceptable to both black and white communities, they invited the sisters to the public schools in Leake County, and one year later, asked one of them to be principal of the elementary school. She didn’t see herself as prophetic when she spoke out against the practice of corporal punishment that was common in Mississippi, but she did speak out and the others stood by her. They drew others in by their steadfast commitment to being good teachers and respecting each child. White parents who were fearful of the sisters (because of ignorance about our life) grew to respect and work with them as partners in giving the best to the children—ALL the children.

Sister Ann Veronica would have laughed at being called prophetic, but what else was it when she took a job in the Choctaw hospital and encouraged the aides who worked with her to go on for nurses training? And they did!

In 1981, the Franciscan Sisters withdrew from Carthage, leaving many lay people dedicated to continuing the mission of forming a faith community that today includes black, white, Hispanic, Choctaw, and Vietnamese. A Sister of Charity continues the work and tells of how the people speak so lovingly of the Franciscans who served. A visit to St. Anne’s a few years back revealed the stories that are being told. What is emphasized is that “you came back” after the fire! Not just one or two, but over the years 14 more sisters served in that mission.

Looking back tells us they did the work of prophets—they confronted evil and denounced it, they moved beyond their fears for personal safety, they announced the good news, they drew others in (even their foes), and they bore witness to the unfolding mystery of God. More than likely, they would have said they were just doing, by God’s grace, what was theirs to do.

Sr. Cathy Cahill was in Mississippi from 1966 to 1973, and counts it as ‘part of my richest and most life transforming experiences.’