Doing Something Life-Giving for the Community

Dear Friends,

Let’s begin today by remembering two generous, energetic, insightful women who died 25 years apart in Rochester, NY. 

Hattie Harris, “the mayor of Strathallan Place,” has been honored for her tireless efforts to improve life for all. Michael Wenzel, writing in her obituary, told how “she influenced elections, legislation, and community projects. She also worked hard for those who were not politically well connected.” Hattie Harris once remarked: “Be ashamed to die until you have done something life-giving for the community.” Hattie died in 1998 at the age of 101. 

The remarkable Rosa Wims died just last month, in September 2023. After 28 years as a licensed practical nurse, Rosa began a new phase of her life. She started the Faith Community Wellness Center on Genessee Street, but hers became a name well-known in the larger for her pre-Thanksgiving dinners for the needy. More and more people came to eat, and more and more people came to help. Eventually, she passed off the organization of this feast to Foodlink, while she became the honorary host. Rosa was 100 years old when she died. Much loved and respected by the community. 

A Jewish woman and a Black woman – both continued their service to the community long after they could well have retired and taken their leisure. They are models for us today. They are our Sisters. 

I could find no insight into their motivations – religious or not, but if you and I are believers in the Risen Christ, then we look to Him to create in us the capacity to heal, to touch in love, to welcome the outcast, to render justice and mercy. We might not do the same things as Hattie Harris and Rosa Wims, but as we live on through the years we have been given, let’s develop in ourselves a willingness, an openness to serve deep into our so-called golden years.

We bring Christ’s values to meeting the contemporary questions and needs of our time. Each age of Christianity has had to do that. Our ancestors in faith and we depend on the Holy Spirit working with us to interpret the signs of the times, to live faithfully through times that would draw us down into despair or mean-spiritedness.

In our efforts to know and express in our day the best that Jesus has to offer, we tend to bump into each other in creative or disruptive ways. But we go on, finding resources and companions to do what is needed, using Christ’s very self as the measure of what we strive to become, overcome, improve and create a community of people who love one another. 

~ Sister Joan Sobala

*Pictures courtesy of the Democrat and Chronicle