I first met Sister Anne Schuster at St. Ann’s Byzantine Catholic Church. I came in to serve the altar at Liturgy one morning and noticed her standing in the front, clothed in the traditional brown habit of the Carmelite Order. She was a Traditional Latin Catholic who had taken all she cared to experience of the Novus Ordos Mass of the Roman Catholic Church. I understood perfectly. When I was examining as  Protestant the ancient and apostolic faith which came to be called “katholicos” (catholic) in the second century, my experience of the Novus Ordos Mass was disappointing. It felt way too much like the Protestantism i would eventually leave. She and I hit it off right away!

Sister Anne couldn’t have been five feet tall. Her short, wispy blonde hair was always covered with some sort of head covering.  The thing I came to love most about her was that she was always “a ray of sunshine” when you met her. Even if she was having a bit of a bad day, as I would come to learn when we talked privately after Liturgy, she was smiling. I don’t think I ever once met with her that she wasn’t cheerful.

She lived as a hermit – given to a life of prayer – in a small ranch house in New Cumberland Pennsylvania. Her obituary states: “On April 4, 2016, she professed to become a Hermit Sister in a ceremony presided over by Most Reverend Bishop Gainer and Very Reverend Burger.” but she was living the life before that. This just made it official.

I enjoyed visiting her house for short visits to discuss theological issues, sometimes intertwined with the latest political news, at which she would rail indignantly about Catholic politicians who seem to leave their faith in the church when they leave on Sunday mornings. The best part of visiting with her was her cats – all ten of them. Being a cat lover myself, they made my visit, over a hot cup of tea and fine conversation, all that much more enjoyable.

It was Sister who was responsible for my visit to Holy Trinity monastery in Butler Pennsylvania as I sought to figure out what to do with my life after the death of my first wife. I was talking with her one morning after Liturgy when she said, quite out of the blue and not related to anything we were discussing, “I think you would make a good monk.”

I almost turned around to see who had walked in behind me.

“Me?” I was more than a little stunned, being that I had initially approached her with questions about developing a prayer life. I didn’t have a prayer discipline at that time, and I also was deeply aware of my own lack of spirituality and holiness. While I had come to deeply love the Byzantine Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom, I had the sense that I was simply not monk material. She disagreed, and encouraged me to visit our monastery in Butler to “try it out and see what you think.”

I did – and I LOVED it!

The quiet, the routine of prayer, the reading of spiritual books – for some reason I felt deeply at home at Holy Trinity. I was therefore very surprised when the Lord made it clear to me that this was not my calling. I have been called to a life of service, which does make sense to me in that I discovered that I am not a contemplative person. I read Fr. Thomas Merton, but I am in no way like him. My strength and spiritual gift appears to be that of service.

When I returned and shared this with her, she suggested that I look into the diaconate ordination program that had recently been revived in the Ruthenian Church. I was accepted into the 2015 class at St. Cyril and Methodius seminary, but three years later was arbitrarily dismissed from the program after complaining about the liturgical violations of our new priest. Our bishop did not respond to my letters and never investigated the complaints. In retrospect, it appears that my complaints were legitimate. The priest who had me sacked has been put on “administrative leave” and the parish is , according to some people who should know and have told me, in a turmoil. At least a dozen people that I know have left it, many to go to the Orthodox parish across the street.

Sister was among those who left. She one day overheard the priest saying something completely out of line with Catholic moral teaching,  an idea he held that deeply shocked her. For her, that was it! The Diocese of Harrisburg had recently started a Traditional Latin Mass at the cathedral chapel and Sister was all to happy to leave St. Ann’s and the rogue priest to go back to that in which she had been raised. I moved on to remarry and left to live in my new wife’s house in Virginia. We continued to converse by phone and Email, but not frequently, as I didn’t want to interrupt her life of prayer.

My dear friend passed into the next life on April 2 of this year. This morning, as I prayed for her repose, I thought it would be good, knowing that many of my  readers are of the same faith, to request your prayers for her.

This is the beautiful prayer of the Byzantine Church:

O God of spirits and of all flesh, who have trampled death and annihilated the devil and given life to your world, may You Yourself, O Lord, grant to the soul of your deceased servant, Sister Anne, rest in a place of light, a verdant place, a place of freshness, from where suffering, pain and cries are far removed. Do You, O good and compassionate God forgive every fault committed by her in word, work or thought, because there is no one who lives and does not sin. You alone are without sin and your justice is justice throughout the ages, and your word is truth. Since you, O Christ our God, are the resurrection, the life and the repose of your deceased servant, Sister Anne, we give you glory together with your unbegotten Father and your most holy, good and life-creating Spirit, now and always and forever and ever.

Thank you.