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Sister Celesta Day retires from office of mission effectiveness

After serving as director of the office of mission effectiveness for 16 years, Sister Celesta Day is passing the baton. When she was appointed the position by the congregational leadership, Sister Celesta was taking on an entirely new venture, one meant to address a need to maintain a presence in FSPA-sponsored facilities without the member numbers to continue that presence physically.

"The thing I keep hearing and I hope our sisters hear too, is that our lay employees want this connection," says Sister Celesta. "It isn't a barrier that we are not physically working beside them. But that we are sponsoring, supporting, encouraging, sharing a faith experience with them is very important."

Sister Celesta knows that changes to the community have to be reflected in the sponsored institutions. "The words I've always used are, 'we've moved from presence to influence.' But I think they (the sponsored institutions) are looking for presence in a new sense; not a sister on every department like we had when I began, but they were very clear that even if we were not physically present daily, that sponsorship meant a great deal to their organizations. It's a tangible, proven thing that pulls people together for meaning and group unity."

Sister Celesta Day leads an Envision program at the Franciscan Spirituality Center this spring.

The journey to establishment of what is now a thriving mission effectiveness program began in 1988 with an actuarial study conducted by Zielinski & Associates of St. Louis, Mo. That report stated the FSPA was "ministerially vulnerable," which pointed to the declining numbers in membership and the diminishing ability to serve in all administrative and staff roles of the sponsored institutions. The study recommended development of a Mission Effectiveness Program, ". . . that would inform and teach the lay directors or trustees about the history, philosophy and charism of FSPA. A comprehensive Mission Effectiveness Program can be used to ensure that FSPA principles are incorporated in the daily operations of the various institutions."

From this conclusion, the office of mission effectiveness was created in 1989. With the help of an advisory committee, Sister Celesta says the program was able to satisfy a need that had not been recognized to that point. "What I was doing was creating settings where people could feel comfortable speaking about their own values and meaning."

Because it would be impossible for a one-person department to contact every employee in all of the sponsored institutions, the delivery of the mission effectiveness message came from the top: with the chief operating officers of each institution. "We agreed that leadership would be our focus, so that the language would flow from the leadership and would become part of the mores of the organization."

According to Sister Celesta, the need for the integration of mission into the workplace was obvious, and employees embraced the opportunity. "I think the work setting nowadays is very pressurized," she said. "It's more competitive than my early work experiences, and more demanding time-wise and more difficult for families. And so to bring meaning to that and bring them a small amount of reflection time was very positive."

The mission effectiveness effort now has three established programs: the annual sponsorship conference, which began in 1990; the Assisi pilgrimage, which began in 1993; and the Envision leadership program which began in 1991. All three have met with enthusiasm and continue to indicate strong interest among employees in discovering meaning and purpose in the workplace. For example, the annual sponsorship conference is in its 16th year, and has drawn about 175 participants in recent years. The Assisi pilgrimage has had 182 participants in total, 66% of whom are employees of sponsored institutions, while the remaining members are comprised of spouses, friends and repeat visitors. Meanwhile the Envision leadership program has had 523 participants since its inception, and the annual follow-up sessions in Advent and sometimes Lent draw an average of 75 to 80 participants.

For Sister Celesta, these numbers validate her belief in the workforce at the FSPA-sponsored institutions. "I think our strength, our greatest strength in health care and higher education is the quality of people that work with us. They are just marvelous. I have an admiration of them."

When looking back, Sister Celesta says the history of the congregation has been an encouragement to employees of the sponsored institutions, because the sisters have integrated problems and serious work with meaning in their lives. "Our sisters came with very little from Europe to a 'new world' they called it, and started schools and hospitals where there weren't any. Well now there are plenty, and we're competing. And yet there needs to be a meaning that holds people together and that makes all that difficulty worthwhile."

Sister Celesta is quick to share the success of the office with others, including the advisory group. "I think also that working with leadership kept us from becoming too invasive in operations. We wanted to influence philosophy, mission and ethics, but not interfere with the things that were legitimately the operations of local leadership. And I think we were successful in doing that."

She also credits the FSPA community for the investment they've made in her as an individual. "It's been a fun job. I've enjoyed it very much. I had a lot of opportunities in the congregation that prepared me for a job like this. I could never have done it without the education and resources they put into me."

As Sister Celesta moves on from the mission effectiveness position to explore personal projects and writing, Sister Jean Moore is taking the reins of the office.

"Sister Jean is an intelligent, committed person who values our sponsored institutions and I think she's going to do a beautiful job," says Sister Celesta, "I came in with a health care background. Sister Jean will come in with a higher education background, so she brings a strength that balances what I brought.

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