Remembering Our IHM Sister Angela Miller
Memorial Services Planned for Sister Angela Miller, IHM and Rosemary Smith
On Sunday, May 20, 2018 a memorial prayer will be held for Sister Angela Miller, IHM and her sister, Rosemary Smith at 1:30 p.m. at the IHM Center, 2300 Adams Avenue, Scranton. Visitation with the family and IHM Sisters will follow until 5:00 p.m.
A Mass for Sister Angela and Rosemary will be held on Monday, May 21, 2018 at 10:00 a.m. at the IHM Center.
Family, friends, and neighbors are invited to attend these services.
Memorial contributions may be made to support the retired IHM Sisters c/o the IHM Sisters Retirement Fund, IHM Center, 2300 Adams Avenue, Scranton, PA 18509.
The Sisters of IHM are deeply grieved at the horrific and heartbreaking situation which took the lives of our Sister Angela Miller, her sister, Rose Smith, our employee at the IHM Center for seventeen years, and her son, Alan on April 28, 2018.
Our hearts and prayers are joined in sorrow with Angela’s and Rose’s sisters, Theresa and Helen, and all their family members during this difficult time. We also join our prayers with our family of employees at the IHM Center, the administrators, staff, and clients of St. Joseph’s Center, with whom Sister Angela currently ministered, and the Saint Clare/Saint Paul Elementary School and parish communities, where she lived and ministered for many years.
We deeply appreciate the outpouring of prayers, wishes, and efforts extended to us by so many in the Scranton community and beyond since this tragedy. We extend our heart-felt thanks to police and fire personnel and all public officials for their heroic efforts.
For more than fifteen years the IHMs have participated in efforts to bring awareness to the tragedy of domestic violence by supporting the Women’s Resource Center and the “Empty Place at the Table.” We unite with all who refuse to be numbed by tragedy but instead use their grief energy to work for the fullness of compassion and justice.
Our faith in God’s mercy and love continues to sustain us and gives us strength and hope for this beautiful, yet wounded world.
News article:
http://thetimes-tribune.com/news/after-huge-search-effort-scranton-nun-remains-missing-1.2336174
Reprinted from "In Memoriam" section of Journey, Fall 2018 issue
Reflection given by Sister Ellen Maroney, IHM Congregation President
Memorial Mass on May 21, 2018 for Sister Angela Marie Miller (February 19, 1942 - April 28, 2018) and her sister, IHM Employee Rosemary Smith (February 23, 1946- April 28, 2018)
The poet, John O’Donohue, wrote the following: Though we need to weep your loss, you dwell in that safe place in our hearts where no storm or night or pain can reach you.
We gather this morning in faith yet with hearts heavy with sadness and uncertainty. We look for answers and we find more questions. We have experienced the horror of domestic violence perhaps in a way never imagined before. Yet, in the midst of this darkness, we do gather in hope because our faith and the lives of these two women show us how.
Yesterday at the memorial prayer for Angela and Rose, many friends and neighbors shared some wonderful moments about how these two women touched their lives: their joy, their kindness, their spirit, their generosity, their simple goodness. That prayer drew our individual memories into a new collective one that comforted and strengthened us, yes, but also gave us a window to see beyond our own pain, anger, and sorrow to the beauty and inspiration that Angela and Rose were for us. Their example serves to encourage us to practice with deeper awareness those simple acts of kindness and love that can make such a difference in one another’s life.
I noted yesterday at the memorial prayer that I was struck by the variety and number of connections Rose and Angela had in their lives. Their relationships with so many tells us the story. They were bright lights in our lives. They were givers and doers who were joyful and caring, warm and friendly, generous and resilient, and, oh yes, did I mention that they could talk forever – even at the same time! They both had the knack of engaging anyone, friend or stranger, in conversation, and after 10 or 15 minutes, could tell you the entire history of that person. Their circle of relationships just kept getting wider every day and they treasured their connections for the life and joy they both gave and received. They taught us about the deep value of love for others not just by words, but by the way they lived their lives each day.
As I look around this chapel, I think that is what this community of believers is for one another during this time of our own sorrow and uncertainty. We come together, Angela’s and Rose’s family of origin, their IHM family, the family from St. Clare’s-St. Paul’s, their diocesan family, and their community of friends, to offer support as we seek to understand the sudden and tragic loss of such vibrant people in our lives. As a faith community, our heads assure us that they are with their God enjoying the fullness of eternal life and we rejoice in that certitude. Our hearts, however, are broken and we struggle with our loss. We come together this day to share our faith, our support, and we pray for an increase in our own deep trust in the God who calls us before we are even born, who loves and cares for us no matter what, and who sent his Son to overcome death and fulfill his promise of resurrection for all of us.
Angela and Rose were resurrection people. Their relationship with God was drawn from a deep trust and love. Both spoke easily about their own spirituality and their love and trust in God in a way that invited that same faith in us. Rose was always the first to say, “I’ll say a prayer for that,” whenever something was going on with the sisters, or her family, or especially some tragedy in the world. Angela was the same, whether in the classroom or with those to whom she ministered. From their own inner pain and sorrow, they perhaps understood suffering and need in others better than most of us, and through their own experience, were able to reach out to others and to each other. Their love of and trust in God is what sustained and carried them each day and enabled them to live the mystery of that deep faith with a strength that continues to sustain each of us during this time. “A blessing,” wrote author Jan Richardson, “meets us in the place of our deepest loss. . . offers us a glimpse of wholeness and claims that wholeness here and now.” This is her “Blessing of Hope” for each of us today:
So may we know the hope that is not just for someday but for this day – here, now, in this moment that opens to us:
hope not made of wishes but of substance . . .
hope that has breath and a beating heart,
hope that will not keep quiet and be polite,
hope that knows how to holler when it is called for,
hope that knows how to sing when there seems little cause,
hope that raises us from the dead – not someday but this day, every day, again and again and again.
So as we gather around this table today, may we resolve to be examples of God’s love and care for others and may we be blessed by our own faith and hope in the resurrected Jesus and rejoice in the same God who today enfolds Angela and Rose in loving arms of eternal peace and joy.
