Stained-glass windows link Marlborough nuns to Dorchester students

The donation of two stained-glass windows has unexpectedly created a connection between Catholic nuns from Marlborough and students at Saint John Paul II Catholic Academy in Dorchester.

Eight of the Sisters of the Good Shepherd made a rare trip from their convent at the New Horizons retirement community for a May 12 ribbon cutting ceremony for the 55-year-old windows, which now brighten the Academy’s media center. New Horizons had salvaged the windows from the chapel at Madonna Hall School for Girls after purchasing that property from the Sisters in 1993.

During the Academy’s rebuilding campaign last year, New Horizons donated the colorful windows, which had been commissioned from award-winning artist and Lithuanian refugee Albinas Elskus. When Mary Flynn Meyers, vice president of the Development Campaign for Catholic Schools, found out that the Sisters had a special connection to these stained-glass pieces, she promised to invite them to see the windows once installed in their new home.

Last week, she made good on that promise.

“We were received like royalty,” said Kathy Chinappi, RN, lay administrator for the convent for almost 15 years, who accompanied the Sisters. “Everyone was so welcoming. The stories our hosts shared, the students we met with, and the school itself were ever so impressive.”

The Sisters, who range in age from 74 to 94, were greeted at the entrance by a huge teddy bear with a welcome sign in its lap. They visited with the school’s youngest students and participated in a discussion with its eighth-grade class.

A question about prayer launched Sister Elizabeth Correia into a speech about how the Sisters are a “powerhouse of prayer” that had the students riveted and engaged, according to Chinappi. When Correia asked if anyone had any prayer intentions, the room became a beehive of activity.

Chinappi kept notes as students and staff members alike asked for prayers for loved ones. The Sisters made mental notes as well. When the women returned to their convent, Chinappi didn’t even need to post the list; the Sisters got right to work on the prayers for Saint John Paul II Catholic Academy.

“This is the Sisters’ work, and they take it quite seriously,” said Chinappi. “People call from all over the country with prayer requests.”

A reciprocal trip is in the works for the Academy students to visit The Good Shepherd Center at New Horizons.

The Sisters joined the Archdiocese of Boston in 1867 and ran the House of the Good Shepherd on Mission Hill for nearly a century before moving their therapeutic residential program, Madonna Hall School for Girls, to Marlborough in 1964.

When the school closed, the Sisters sold the property to Cummings Foundation, which built New Horizons on the site and invited the Sisters to remain in their home on campus, rent-free. In 2012, the Foundation constructed a 12,000-square-foot convent for them adjacent to New Horizons’ Cardinal Cushing Chapel, where the Sisters still help with daily Catholic Mass. The secular senior living community also offers weekly Jewish and Protestant services.

About St. John Paul II Catholic Academy

The Lower Mills campus of Saint John Paul II Catholic Academy has 340 students in preschool through grade 8. It is part of a four-campus school spread across Dorchester and Mattapan that serves more than 1,200 low-income children from 17 different faith traditions.

About New Horizons

Established in 1994, New Horizons at Marlborough is a private not-for-profit retirement community on a 40-acre country campus. An affiliate of Cummings Foundation, Inc., New Horizons provides homes for up to 500 seniors in independent and assisted-living settings and employs a staff of more than 125 Metrowest residents. Visit www.CountryCommunities.com for more information.

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PHOTO: Left to right: Sr. Kathleen Gingras, Sr. Ann Roussel, Sr. Virginia Agnes Turinese, Sr. Theresa Stanek, Christian Guerrier (grade 4), Keisha Dornevil (grade 7), Sr. Victoria Andreoli (past province leader), Sr. Elizabeth Correia, Sr. Dorothy Margaret Brown, and Sr. Ages Rose Richardson cut the ribbon on two stained-glass windows repurposed from the Madonna Hall School for Girls’ chapel.