Unlike many of our Sisters, Sister Amy Williams didn’t entertain
thoughts of joining religious life at a young age.
“I always thought I would be married,” she says. In fact, she was 30 years old, working as a legal secretary, when she first heard the call. My grandmother raised me from a very young age. When I was 30, she passed away,” Sister Amy recalls. “Around then, I heard this whisper, ‘I want you to be a sister.’ I thought it was crazy.” However, she began attending retreats at Tabor House, a former retreat center located on the campus of the Sisters in Millvale, Pennsylvania. There she met and formed friendships with Sisters Kathleen Adamski and Pat Rogan. She spent time on the campus; Tabor House became a favorite location. It was there that she heard the voice again.
“Around then, I heard this whisper, ‘I want you to be a sister.’ I thought it was crazy.” However, she began attending retreats at Tabor House, a former retreat center located on the campus of the Sisters in Millvale, Pennsylvania. There she met and formed friendships with Sisters Kathleen Adamski and Pat Rogan. She spent time on the campus; Tabor House became a favorite location. It was there that she heard the voice again.
“I was sitting in Tabor House, and I heard, ‘You are in the place where you should be, where I want you to be,’” she relates; however, it would be another 18 months of ‘back and forth’ before she entered the congregation. By then, she was 35 years old and had been a legal secretary for 10 years.
During her grandmother’s illness, Sister Amy witnessed the loving care that hospice provided. “Something in that struck a chord with me,” she says. She expressed her interest in working with hospice to community
leadership. Because she wasn’t sure in what capacity she wanted to minister at hospice, leadership suggested she spend time at Francis House in Syracuse, New York, a home for the terminally ill that the sisters sponsored.
In 2012, Sister Amy professed her final vows and joined the professional staff of Pittsburgh’s UPMC Mercy Hospital as a nurse on the neuro trauma unit. Eventually, she became a hospice nurse, working over the past 11 years in home care and inpatient settings for Forbes Hospice, Good Samaritan Hospice and, most recently, Community LIFE.
Sister Amy loved the work, caring for an individual’s physical needs as a nurse and also being present to their spiritual needs as a woman religious. When she was nominated for leadership, she says she looked for every possible excuse not to follow through.
“Keeping my name in the running was the biggest discernment in the 19 years since I joined community,” she says. “I prayed to God to give me a reason to pull out.” But what she heard was the voice urging her to ‘stay in this uncertainty with me a little longer.’
“Then it became less about leadership and more about trusting in God. And more of a communal discernment and less about me,” she says.
Sister Amy has opened herself to the many changes her election brings, and she’s calm about them. She’s not only leaving a beloved ministry, but she’s also moving from western Pennsylvania to the congregation’s headquarters in Syracuse, New York.
“I’m not really sure of all that the position entails,” she says. “But I’m really excited to get started.”
Amy Williams, OSF, Talks about her Joy of Religious Life
Sr. Amy Williams was recently interviewed by the Catholic Sun about her role as a councilor on our leadership team and her journey leading up to her election. In Eileen Jevis’ article, “Sr. Amy Williams, OSF, talks about her life of leadership,” she shares insights into her life before exploring a vocation and her decision to enter religious life. Click the link above to read her inspiring story.
