Associate in Mission Pat Somers from Flourtown, PA

Associate in Mission, Pat Somers from Flourtown, PA, shares how she lives our mission and shares the charism each day…

After I retired from a forty-five-year career as a Registered Nurse I began to look around for something to fill the void.

Our country was in the midst of an immigrant crisis that was stirred politically. Suddenly immigrants were the enemy.

I sought out Sister Connie Trainor at the SSJ Welcome Center in the Kensington section of Philadelphia. My interest focused on preparation for the Citizen exam.

Across the street from the Welcome Center was Mother of Mercy House. I don’t remember how it started but I started delivering food there monthly from Saint Genevieve’s parish in Flourtown.

Now I deliver a trunk load of food and water and approximately one hundred sandwiches each week from our parish and the Knights of Columbus.
After I deliver the food, I go next door to the Welcome Center to teach citizenship. I have built bonds with the Sisters serving the Kensington community as well as the staff at both facilities. Most rewarding is the relationships formed with the students working so hard to become citizens. They are so inspiring.

On January 25, 2023, a young woman I’ve been working with became a US citizen. I’m so proud of her! That’s what it is all about!!
“… to deepen and widen our SSJ Spirituality and our lived expression of it in our relationships with the dear neighbor, both at the margins, and beside us in the ordinary circumstances of our lives…”