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07/18/2018 08:30 AMAfter a lifetime in religion, including 57 years as a nun, 10 years with St. Mary’s Church, and also serving with the new St. Bosco Parish, Sister Carolyn Severino is...not retiring.
In fact, the work she’s about to undertake is about as far from retirement as one can get—and pretty far from home, too. On Aug. 6, Sr. Carolyn will become part of a team of three sisters sent to Ireland’s Waterford Diocese for a year of mission work.
“I tell God every day, ‘You give me my health and I will work for you to the ends of the earth.’ So he’s taking me at my word,” says Sr. Carolyn.
At this point, about all Sr. Carolyn knows is she will be working with the bishop to go into the community and help share the faith that is so central to her life.
“I know what I can do, but I don’t know how I can do it there, and I won’t know that until I get there,” she says, adding she will share her message of God’s love “for those that are open to it, and for those that are not open to it, I’d like to just whet their appetite. It’s going to be a little more difficult with people who don’t care to grow, and hope that I entice them to want to grow.”
She’ll also try to use some of her downtime to do things she loves: prison ministry and helping the homeless.
“I’ll see if there’s a local jail and I’ll see if there’s a soup kitchen, because that’s where I’m comfortable,” she says.
For 20 years, Sr. Carolyn has volunteered for prison ministry during Saturday visits with men incarcerated in the New Haven Correctional Center on Whalley Avenue. As down-to-earth and outgoing as she is, Sr. Carolyn admits that sharing prayer, bible study, and religious discussions with men who may or may not be involved in the faith was a bit daunting, at first.
“The first few times, I was very scared, [but] there’s goodness in them. Some of them don’t even know what religion they are. I just try to encourage them, and remind them how much God loves them, because people don’t remember that.”
Sr. Carolyn has also spent many a Thursday night spreading the same message at a soup kitchen in Hamden where she’s volunteered for years.
“These are people who feel like they’re invisible, and I just love letting them know they’re important and that they’re of value,” she says.
The task of helping others understand God’s love has always been Sr. Carolyn’s calling. The New Haven native attended the former St. John the Evangelist School, then Sacred Heart Academy, “and from there, God took over,” she says.
From her early days as nun, Sr. Carolyn served for many years as a Catholic school educator, then principal, in Connecticut, Pennsylvania, and Florida. She then went on to parish work, and later left that work to become director of the Caritas Christi Center, a spirituality center that is a ministry of the Apostles of the Sacred Heart in Hamden.
While Sr. Carolyn loved her work with the Caritas Christi Center, “I had missed being in the parish so much,” she says. “I was doing presentations, but people were coming to me, and I like to go to the people.”
Ten years ago, then-St. Mary’s pastor Father Christopher Ford came calling.
“He found out where I was, and who I was, and so he came to meet me and asked if I would do different things in the parish.”
From those first few programs, Sr. Carolyn went on to work full time for the parish, serving the past decade as its director of Adult Faith Formation. She also served as principal of St. Mary’s School for three years (2012 to 2015). Today, St. Mary’s Church, together with St. Therese’s Church and the former St. Elizabeth’s Church, comprise the St. Bosco Parish.
“I found the people so welcoming and so warm, and I still feel that way,” she says. “It’s a beautiful parish with a cross section age-wise, ethnicity-wise, even faith-wise.
Through the years, she’s led several types of programs to assist adults and families with their faith journey. In many cases, she’s assisted adults who haven’t been to church in years.
“The church they grew up in, and even the church I grew up in, that’s not so any more—not that the doctrines have changed, it’s our understanding. And the focus is so much on God’s love for us, and I think that’s what everyone needs to hear today.”
She’s also served the parish as a spiritual director, working one-on-one with parishioners.
Sr. Carolyn’s last official day with St. Mary’s ended with the month of June, but she hopes to keep in touch.
“There’s the phone, there’s Facetime, there’s Skype. I keep reminding myself the lines of communication are so open. I’m still going to be in contact, and life goes on for everyone, but I certainly will miss everyone here. They’ve gotten under my skin. I love the people in this parish, and the people that I’ve worked with have deeply touched me, and I am most grateful.”
Grateful is also the word Sr. Carolyn uses to describe how she feels about setting off for her work in Ireland.
“I am very much at peace, because this is where God wants me. I’m just grateful for all the things that God has done with me, for me, in me, through me, and the people that he’s put in my life,” she says. “When I think back through all my years of religious life, especially in parish work [when] working with just the adults—you’re helping people fulfill their hunger and their search. You’re showing them where they can look for what they really need. We’re all hungry, but most people don’t know what they’re hungry for. They think it’s this or that, but nothing works, or maybe it works for a little bit. And I just try to lead them to it.”