Diocesan retreats give sisters a chance to share camaraderie, prayer, learning
SALT LAKE CITY — As sisters, Joanne Tuero and Diana Murphy have always done things together. Their favorites these days are scrapbooking, shopping and taking their grandkids on adventures. Murphy has two children and two grandchildren; Tuero has four children, seven grandchildren and one great-grandchild born in January.
Just a year apart in age, the two have always been close, but in recent years circumstances have brought them even closer together.
Murphy, a retired computer systems analyst, has a condition that has left her legally blind; Tuero, a retired nurse who spent much of her career in nursing administration, acts as her chauffeur and more.
“After Diana’s diagnosis, I became her driver, her seeing eye dog, her everything,” said Tuero, the oldest daughter in a family of nine siblings. She is the take-charge part of the duo, while Murphy, who has an earthy sense of humor and perspective on life and her disability, keeps things real.
The two grandmothers exchange words as easily as swapping scrapbook pages, often finishing each other’s sentences, supplementing or interrupting each other’s conversations and even occasionally unintentionally speaking in unison.
Murphy, who said her mother always called her a heathen, left the Church for many years, returning only when her son began catechism classes. By contrast, Tuero has always been faithful, except for the year she turned 19 and her younger sister, Lucina, age 4, drowned, she said.
“I was angry with God and I said, ‘I’m going to punish you,’ so I didn’t go to church for a year. So I’m punishing God and I was like, ‘how mature was that at 19?’” she said.
When the family got together and talked about how their sister did not have to endure many of the trials they had to go through, Tuero realized that Lucina was the lucky one, she said, and she was able to let the anger go and move on.
Coming at their faith from different places, the two sisters have arrived at the same destination where they value the beliefs instilled in them by their mother, Blandina.
These days, Tuero has a particular devotion to the rosary. Instead of listening to the radio when she is in the car she puts in a CD of the rosary and prays along with it. Murphy, a captive audience, was initially reluctant to join in, she said, but now she does so willingly.
Murphy is a St. Vincent de Paul parishioner; Tuero, who is married to Deacon Manuel Velez and calls herself a “floater,” attends Mass at the Cathedral of the Madeleine or with Murphy at St. Vincent de Paul when she is not accompanying her husband to an assignment at another parish. The sisters participate in celebrations for Easter and Christmas together at their own or other parishes – “whoever’s having the biggest and neatest event,” Tuero said.
The two siblings have taken a Bible study course together and have attended many of the Msgr. Benvegnu lectures and Lenten movies at St. Vincent de Paul Parish. These days, they have found a common spiritual resource and hope in the retreats they have shared. Over the past four years, they have participated in all the diocesan Lenten retreats and have saved all the materials from those retreats.
“It’s really nice to go with somebody,” Murphy said. “Then we can share our thoughts and we can talk about it. We talk about our families and how maybe it would have affected them.”
A great sense of camaraderie exists at the retreats, she added.
The sisters are already registered for the upcoming diocesan Lenten retreat, which is scheduled for Saturday, March 21. (For information about the retreat, see the link.)
Tuero and Murphy, who both worked outside the home while their children were young, acknowledge that families are very busy these days and it can seem like a sacrifice to give up a Saturday to attend the Lenten retreat.
“You’re so busy, you don’t have time,” Murphy said.
Then in unison, the sisters said, “But if you would just stop, just stop and go to one.”
“I think you would feel that your life isn’t so empty even though you’re so dang busy,” Murphy added. “Maybe it means something; maybe you can tie it to God because you forget God. Everybody forgets God. … When you attend a retreat you kind of learn again your religion. You don’t go to school; you don’t have catechism anymore. The Church changes, and if you’re not reading constantly, you don’t know what’s going on in the Church.”
The retreats are part education and part prayer, Tuero said, “but prayer is paramount; prayer, prayer, prayer.”
“You feel more connected with God; the outside world goes away,” she added. “You internalize it and you have time to listen.”
In addition to the knowledge they receive and prayers they participate in, one thing that all the retreats leave them with is hope, both sisters agree.
“You’re growing inside and you hope that, with you having faith in the Lord and listening to what he’s telling you and you practicing what Jesus has taught us, that you become the example for the world,” Tuero said.
“It just opens your mind; you get so tied up in your own little world and then you go to a retreat and you hear other people talk,” Murphy added. “You talk about the Lord or what the Lord has done for you and it’s like ‘Ah, there is hope.’”
Although she often asks Tuero or her brother-in-law questions about the Church, Murphy would love to see the diocese or one of the parishes offer an ongoing adult catechism class.
“I can’t remember why we do what we do; I can’t remember half my prayers,” she said.
In the meantime, she looks to the retreats for the instruction she craves.
“How many people are out there like me, who don’t know and are afraid to ask and feel stupid and feel ‘Oh, I’m really dumb because I don’t know this?’” she said. “We need something; something to bring the Catholics back to learning, and that’s what I’m hoping the retreats will do.”
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