Tuesday, May 13 was not an ordinary day for students at the Portsmouth Notre Dame Schools.
Students at Notre Dame Elementary and Notre Dame Junior and Senior High School witnessed something special during an all-school Mass that morning: the renewal of vows of a consecrated religious sister.
Sister Mary Gianna Casino, a sister of the Leaven of the Immaculate Heart of Mary religious order, renewed her temporary vows before the Notre Dame Schools student body during Mass. The Mass was held at Portsmouth Holy Redeemer Church, located behind Notre Dame Elementary and about a mile from the high school, on May 13, the feast of Our Lady of Fatima.
The Leaven Sisters live in a convent at the Portsmouth St. Mary Church rectory, located west of Holy Redeemer Church. The sisters teach and minister to students in the Notre Dame Schools.
The order, which came to the diocese in 2021 at the invitation of then-Bishop Robert Brennan, embraces a contemplative-active life of prayer, penance and apostolate exemplified by the Blessed Virgin Mary. The sisters are dedicated to educating the young and the family.
Sister Gianna, who entered the order in 2014 and professed her first vows in 2020, renewed her temporary vows in front of students during a school Mass.
“I’ve been here 20 years and we’ve never had a ceremony like this,” Notre Dame High School Principal J.D. McKenzie said.
The principal, who taught at the school for 14 years and has been its principal for six, shared that the high school is “blessed to be able to be a part of it.” He hopes the rite “draws the attention for some of our students that this may be a vocation or pathway they would take in the future.”
McKenzie explained that a goal of the school is exposing students to different vocations, including the consecrated religious life. While students might learn about that vocation in class or from the witness of the Leaven Sisters, observing a sister profess vows is a rarity.
“It’s just not something that our young people get to see all the time,” McKenzie said.
He recalled that Mother Assumpta Tangan, superior of the Leaven Sisters’ Portsmouth community, approached him about the possibility. She expressed interest in having Sister Gianna renew her vows in the presence of students. McKenzie said the Notre Dame Schools responded with certainty.
Michelle Ashley, principal at Notre Dame Elementary, said several of the Leaven Sisters assist in the school. They teach religion classes, help prepare students for their First Holy Communion and organize special events throughout the school year to deepen students’ faith. The Leaven Sisters also lead Advent and Lenten retreats for all students in the elementary school, kindergarten through sixth grade.
“It is an honor for them to choose our all-school Mass for Sister Gianna to profess her vows and for the students to witness such a spiritual occasion,” Ashley said.
Renewal of temporary vows is made a few years after professing first vows and before making perpetual vows. The Leaven Sisters then renew their perpetual vows annually.
During the school Mass, Nancy Valdovinos, a postulant in the order, entered the novitiate. Postulancy is the first stage in consecrated religious life, marking official entry in an order, followed by the novitiate, which prepares a woman to live a vowed life.
May 13 was a fitting day for such an occasion.
The Sisters of the Leaven of the Immaculate Heart of Mary unite their daily actions, sufferings and sacrifices to Jesus’ passion and death in response to Our Lady of Fatima’s plea for prayer and penance. Our Lady appeared to three shepherd children in the village of Fatima, Portugal six times between May 13 and October 13, 1917.
The Sisters of the Leaven of the Immaculate Heart of Mary were founded in the Philippines in 1991 and have three convents located in the United States: Hanceville, Alabama; South Sioux City, Nebraska; and Portsmouth.
Sister Gianna, 31, is expected serve with the Leaven Sisters in Portsmouth next school year. She echoed school administrators’ hopes that her profession of vows inspires students to consider consecrated religious life.
“We believe it’s so important to encourage and promote vocations, and it’s not common for children and youth to witness someone giving their entire life to God the way that we have and the way we’re called, as I am going to deepen that commitment through the renewal of vows,” she said.
“We also want that in the presence of our students and families because, religious vows, it’s ultimately a public witness of love, and it’s a witness of commitment to God. Our community is specifically dedicated to the formation of youth and family. We hope that moments like these will really inspire and strengthen those people that attend, especially the young, to live their lives of faith and to be generous and to live a life of purpose.”
Sister Gianna, a native of St. Louis, first learned about consecrated religious life as a kindergarten student while attending Mass at a convent with her family. She recalled seeing women in black habits behind the altar in a cloister. She asked why they were dressed in black and her mother responded that the women were nuns married to Jesus. Sister Gianna said the encounter planted a seed for the vocation in her heart.
She attended St. Louis University on a golf scholarship and studied pre-medicine. She previously won the National Junior Professional Golf Association (PGA) Championship at age 17 and was invited to the Ladies PGA qualifier at age 18. Thoughts of religious life remained, however, and Sister Gianna left college after her sophomore year to pursue the vocation.
“That never really went away, even in high school and college, I always had that on my heart and mind that God might be calling me to be religious sister,” she said. “It was also fostered through the devotion of my family, too. We would pray the rosary every evening. We would make time to go to Adoration, and that’s really what helped me navigate my challenges in life, even as a student, even with a lot of peer pressure.
“Being grounded in faith is what helped me never lose that love for Jesus. I fell in love with Jesus, and I never really got over Him, because no matter what I did or who I was talking to, it was that inclination and that inner drawing to one day be called – ultimately to holiness. I think it was always there: that desire for heaven.”
