Retired sister keeps serving international community

By Tanya Connor
The Catholic Free Press

A local religious sister, who served in Brazil, returned there this spring to help present an award to a rural leader.
Sister Janice M. Belanger, 79, a Sister of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin, now lives in a retirement home in Worcester, but continues serving people internationally and hopes to do so locally too.
In January, she is to start her second three-year term on the board of UNANIMA International, a non-governmental organization which does advocacy at the United Nations and presents a Woman of Courage Award “to a woman every year … in a different part of the world.”
Speaking with The Catholic Free Press last week before the national Retirement Fund for Religious collection was taken up in parishes, Sister Janice commented, “Even retired sisters are still trying to bring the voice of the poor to the United Nations.”
“UNANIMA” refers to unity, “UN” to the United Nations, and “ANIMA” to the spirit of women, she said. She said this NGO is a coalition of 22 congregations of religious women, including hers.
“We advocate for women and children around the world, also for migrants and refugees and for the environment,” she explained. “We work (against) human trafficking. … Our big focus these past years has been on homelessness.” UNANIMA’s executive director, Sister Jean Quinn, a Daughter of Wisdom, speaks at the United Nations.
Sister Jean and Sister Janice went to Brazil in April to present the Woman of Courage Award. They also met with numerous people.
Each year UNANIMA’s board asks member congregations to nominate a woman “who demonstrates courage, defends human rights,” and shows solidarity with others, Sister Janice said.
“With the pandemic, we couldn’t give the award right away, so we went out in 2022” to present the 2021 award to Maria José Cavalcante, a daughter of a poor, landless couple, Sister Janice said. She said Ms. Cavalcante joined other families that struggled successfully to gain rights to some property, now a land settlement called Flor do Bosque, part of the city of Maceio in the state of Alagoas. Ms. Cavalcante is an agricultural technician who shares her knowledge with others, working for pesticide-free agriculture. She also went to Haiti with a group from Brazil to help after a natural disaster. During the coronavirus pandemic, she helped local farmers in Brazil collect food for city-dwellers.
Sister Janice said she went to Brazil before Sister Jean to help prepare for the visit and stayed afterwards to see people she knew there. Sister Carmen Lucia dos Santos, the Sister of the Assumption who nominated Ms. Cavalcante, welcomed them. Sister Janice translated, since Sister Carmen, a Brazilian, does not speak English, and Sister Jean, who is from Ireland and lives in New York, does not speak Portuguese.
When Ms. Cavalcante received the award “it was a very happy day for people,” Sister Janice said. It brought together the locals, professors, politicians, religious sisters and others.  While in Brazil, Sister Jean also heard from the disenfranchised and learned about what is being done for them in various situations, Sister Janice said.
“So UNANIMA International went … not only to give the award but to see … the reality” of suffering, she said. “It was a pleasure for me to go. Here I am, a retired sister. It’s a land that I love. I’ve worked there for 29 years.”
After growing up in Southbridge, educated by the Sisters of the Assumption, then entering their congregation in 1963, Sister Janice offered to go to the foreign missions. She was attracted to such ministry after hearing a missionary speak.
Nevertheless, “I loved teaching the kids in the U.S.,” which included students in Catholic schools in Southbridge and Spencer, she said.
Then she was sent to her first foreign mission; from 1978-1983 she served in Ecuador, doing pastoral ministry and training catechists, she said.
Returning to the Worcester Diocese, she did pastoral ministry in the Spanish Apostolate in Southbridge and Webster from 1983-1987.
In 1987 she went to Brazil, where she did pastoral ministry among the poor and helped with the religious formation of young people.
“A lot of times … we were in areas where there were no established parishes,” she said. She and other sisters lived among the people, helping them share God’s word with each other and build community, and training catechists. She said they maintained a connection with a parish somewhere and collaborated with priests and the diocese.
In 2016, Sister Janice said, she returned to Massachusetts to be closer to a sick family member and lived in Marlborough. She took a sabbatical which included spiritual enrichment and support for returning missionaries. Eventually her congregation asked her to serve on UNANIMA’s board, working for systemic change.
“It’s kind of different for me because I’ve always been on the grassroots level” working directly with the poor, she said.
Sisters of the Assumption aren’t doing a lot of grassroots work around the world now, she said.
“Our congregation is an aging congregation, so we don’t have a lot of active members,” she said. “They’re active in prayer.” And they have lay associates.
Sister Janice said there are about 245 Sisters of the Assumption worldwide – in Brazil, Japan, Ecuador, Canada and 32 in the United States (just in Massachusetts), seven in the Worcester Diocese.
She herself moved from Marlborough to the Colony III retirement home in Worcester in 2021. She said she hopes to join a local social justice group, in addition to continuing UNANIMA work.
“Sometimes elderly sisters will remain in an area as a presence,” she said.
“It’s the grace of the present moment,” added Sister Paula Kelleher, a Sister of St. Joseph and the Worcester Diocese’s interim episcopal liaison to religious. “The grace of consecrated life is developing and it will constantly develop. There will always be people devoted to the works of charity, the charisms.”
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he graces, of all the communities. And that grace comes from Jesus Christ.”  
Donations to help with the care of elderly religious men and women may be made on the diocesan website, www.worcesterdiocese.org or by mailing checks, made out to the Retirement Fund for Religious, to the Chancery Office, 49 Elm St., Worcester, MA 01609.