Sister Bridget Clare retires after 58 years of service

Intermountain Catholic

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Sr. Bridget Clare McKeever will retire June 19, to return to the Sister of St. Louis community in California. IC photo by Chris Young

SALT LAKE CITY — St. Louis Sr. Bridget Clare McKeever will retire June 19, to return to the regional motherhouse with her community in Woodland Hills in the San Fernando Valley of California. She will be available for spiritual direction and is already scheduled to present a few retreats.

Sr. Bridget Clare came to Salt Lake City in 1996, where she has served as director of the Office of Spiritual Direction in the Diocese of Salt Lake City for the past 10 years. There she has trained lay men and women to become spiritual directors. She has also given parish retreats upon request and given individual spiritual direction.

"I have enjoyed my ministry and the people in Salt Lake City, and I love the seasons and the scenery in Utah," said Sr. Bridget Clare. "I will miss the Diocese of Salt Lake City, but I have mixed feelings. Half of my time in the United States has been spent living at a distance from my community because of my ministry. I have missed not living in community. I have always kept in close contact with them, but I am now looking forward to going back. Living alone at my age can be a bit precarious."

Sr. Bridget Clare has been a sister for 58 years. She said being a religious, first of all, has given her the time and opportunity to develop her relationship with God. Secondly it has given her the opportunity to minister wherever God has called her.

Sr. Bridget Clare was born Feb. 26, 1931, in Northern Ireland, just 30 miles outside of Belfast. She is the 15th of 16 children, of which four died in infancy. She attended a small country Catholic grade school and then attended a Catholic high school run by the Sisters of St. Louis. They had a great influence on her life, but it was missionary work in Africa that drew Sr. Bridget Clare to religious life.

"I first thought about becoming a religious when I was seven years old," said Sr. Bridget Clare. "I originally wanted to become a contemplative, but as I got older I began to see the need for missionaries. One year before I graduated from high school, the Sisters of St. Louis got involved in missionary work, and that is what drew me to them. I made the decision to become a sister when I was 17 years old and had just completed high school. I entered the order in 1948. I was always a year younger than the others in my class, because I went to high school when I was 11 years old."

High school in Ireland is a six-year program, whereas in the United States, grades six through eight or nine are called middle school or junior high."

Sr. Bridget Clare made her first profession in 1951, and was sent to California in 1952, where she made her final vows in 1954. She has been to Africa several times giving conferences and retreats but not as a missionary. She received her Bachelor’s Degree in English literature. She taught grade school for two years, and English literature in a high school for 13 years.

Sr. Bridget Clare earned a Master’s Degree in Religion Personality from Duquesne University in Pittsburgh, Pa. She then worked in formation and the continuing formation of the younger sisters in her community.

"My spirituality background is from Duquesne University and within my studies in Religion Personality," said Sr. Bridget Clare. "I received my Ph.D. from the Claremont School of Theology in Claremont, Calif."

This degree qualified her for pastoral counseling, which she did for eight years at St. Meinrad School of Theology, a Benedictine seminary in Southern Indiana. She also taught counseling at Mount St. Mary’s College in Los Angeles, Calif.

"When I came to Salt Lake City in 1996, Bishop George Niederauer, now archbishop Niederauer of San Francisco, hired me to train people to do spiritual direction because of the diminishing number of religious. I believe spiritual direction will be done more and more by lay people in the future."

Sr. Bridget Clare has worked in spiritual direction since 1970, when she graduated from Duquesne University. She said compared with others in pastoral counseling, having training in both spiritual direction and pastoral counseling has allowed her a strong sense of spirituality in human experience.

"I know at Claremont, they appreciated the fact that I had a background in both," she said. "Going to Claremont increased my interest in interfaith issues. Coming from Northern Ireland and living with sectarian conflict, I found it healing to be at Claremont and experience mutual respect between religious traditions.

"As a child growing up, the conflict seemed normal. I thought that was the way the world was," said Sr. Bridget Clare. "I traveled to school with Protestant neighbors and had quite a friendly relationship with them, but we never talked about religion. It was a taboo subject."

She said her Catholic spirituality is part of her heritage, and she experienced it long before she knew it had a name. Celtic spirituality is very aware of God’s presence in everything. There was a prayer for everything in the day from the fire being lighted in the morning until the coals of the fire were raked over at night. The day was filled with a full awareness of God’s presence.

When Sister Bridget Clare entered the community, she never dreamed she would end up in the United States or in Utah.

"I am happy with how my life turned out," she said. "If I had it to do all over again, there is nothing I would change."