The Benedictine Sisters celebrated four sisters on the 60th anniversary of their monastic profession. Sisters Annette Marshall, Pat Lupo, Marcia Sigler, and Mary Ellen Cummings pronounced their vows once again at evening praise on August 1 and then were celebrated by their sisters in community.
All four 2023 Jubilarians were born in Erie and graduated from St. Benedict Academy. As young sisters they all traveled to New York for the Sisters ’66 performance on the Ed Sullivan show. Click here to view the sisters singing “Kumbaya” on Ed Sullivan, with Sister Mary Ellen as the soloist.
Below are short biographies that appeared in the summer issue of The Mount magazine by Sister Susan Doubet.
Sister Annette Marshall
When asked about a moment in her life so significant that after it everything was different, Sister Annette Marshall quickly answered, “As I was being wheeled into surgery after a serious accident 25 years ago which could have taken my life, I was overwhelmed with a sense that all the sisters were there with me. Throughout my long recuperation that sense of community was strengthened as never before. I realized that most of the essentials of my life were all wrapped up with the Benedictine Sisters of Erie.”
In the course of her 60 years wrapped up in the community, Sister Annette taught school and was a principal at St. Gregory School in North East and at St. Benedict Academy in Erie. She served as Director of Glinodo Center, co-founder and director of Lake Erie-Allegheny Earth Force, and most recently as Executive Director of the Benedictine Sisters’ Inner-City Neighborhood Art House. Sister Annette has also served in community leadership on the Monastic Council and as Director of Buildings and Grounds.
It was when she was principal at St. Benedict’s that the community made the decision to close the Academy after 120 years. “We knew for a number of years that we would reach the point when we could not financially sustain the school. It was a years-long painful process of coming to a community decision to close SBA, maybe one of the most difficult decisions we’ve had to make. As principal my priority was making sure every student found a new school where they would feel welcome, and every teacher a position in another school.”
Now, retired from decades of dedication to education and administration, Sister Annette is fulfilling a lifelong dream as coordinator of the Care for the Earth Committee. In this role she leads the Benedictine community’s effort to care for the environment. “The breathtaking beauty and power of the natural world and the realization of the harm we humans have done to our common home challenge me to find ways to make a positive difference,” she says.
Recently Sister Annette was named co-director of the Erie Benedictine Oblate Program where she supports the growth and formation of 230 lay men and women who as oblates make a commitment to live Benedictine spirituality.
Sister Pat Lupo
SisterPat Lupo didn’t hesitate when asked if she had a “bucket list.” “I love to travel; when I had the opportunity to go to Cuba, I jumped at the chance. It was a part of Hispanic culture I wanted to see. And I’d love to visit Australia and Africa,” she answered. “On the other hand, I couldn’t resist the chance to go back to El Salvador.”
Sister Pat and other community members worked with refugees from the civil war that raged in El Salvador through the 1980s until the signing of the peace accords in 1992. In their many visits to that country they witnessed poverty everywhere and also met resilient and hope-filled people. With Sister Pat’s encouragement, the community eventually assisted dozens of refugees seeking asylum. With an M.A. in science, Sister Pat taught at grade school through college levels for many years and always made environmental education and advocacy a priority. She has been a leader in local and national environmental and conservation issues for over 50 years. Currently she is the Environmental Program Director at the Inner-City Neighborhood Art House.
She is co-chair of PLEWA, a watershed association, and of HECA, Hold Erie Coke Accountable, an advocacy group, and a member of the Pennsylvania Sea Grant Statewide Advisory. Sister Pat has served on numerous local and regional environmental boards and has recently been involved in the creation of a Bi-National Great Lakes Group, Great Lakes Ecoregion Network, with other ENGOs in Canada. She has been a Governor appointee to the Great Lakes Commission, the Great Lakes Protection Fund and Pennsylvania’s Citizen Advisory Council. She was a powerful force in cleaning up Lake Erie in the 1980s after it was declared a dead lake.
Sister Pat has received numerous awards from local and national organizations for her work and has represented the Benedictine Sisters at Environmental and Conservation Meetings in Japan and Nepal. She continues to challenge young people at the Benedictine Sisters’ Inner-City Neighborhood Art House as well as the public to address environmental issues, especially the urgent issue of the climate crisis. Her philosophy is simple, “Everything we do impacts earth and life in some way. Every action has an impact on everything around us,” she emphasizes. “I try to teach this as: ‘Sacred action leads to sacred space’ throughout the world.”
Sister Marcia Sigler
Creativity and artistry, honed by years of teaching art to elementary children, serving as a cantor and liturgical dancer at the monastery, and nurturing a volunteer spirit highlight Sister Marcia Sigler’s lifelong interests.
Sister Marcia taught at Erie Diocesan schools before earning a Nurse Aide Certificate and later an Emergency Medical Technician License (EMT). For 10 years Sister Marcia was a volunteer Emergency Medical Technician with the Fairfield Hose Company Volunteer Fire Department, responding to emergencies any time of the day or night. She continues to be an honorary member of the Department. She also ministered for 10 years as a nurse aide at UPMC Hamot Hospital.
In the late 1970s Sister Marcia began volunteering at Emmaus Soup Kitchen, continuing until the covid pandemic began and fewer volunteers were needed. She is a lifelong donor at the Community Blood Bank of NWPA, having earned her 20-gallon pin about three gallons ago. She currently ministers in the community’s Health Services department, transporting sisters to medical appointments and performing a variety of important behind-the-scenes tasks.
In response to the community’s environmental stance, Sister Marcia has become an unofficial “recycling queen,” her focus being plastic recycling. She removes labels and cleans dozens of milk and detergent bottles every week and also cleans small medication bottles which she gives to local animal shelters for pet medications. She credits memories of her father for her helpful attitude. “Whenever he saw a need, he responded,” she recalled. “I try to do the same thing every day.”
In her spiritual life, Sister Marcia has always been drawn to nature, especially mountains, rocks, and woods. She has been on retreat at the Benedictine monastery of Weston Priory in Vermont numerous times, delighting in the mountain atmosphere. She recently took up a new craft, gathering unique wood pieces from nearby wooded areas and beaches and making reflective centerpieces from them.
In her 60th year of monastic profession she notes, “In the difficult moments in my life I will always be grateful that I found strength that I didn’t even know I had, to face problems and come out of the experiences a fuller and better person. I credit the resources within the community and the love of my sisters, who have been with me all these years.”
Sister Mary Ellen Cummings
Growing up the oldest in a large German-Irish Catholic family, three girls and five boys, Sister Mary Ellen Cummings learned early how to lovingly care for children. Since she entered the Benedictine Sisters of Erie in 1961 she has spent most of her ministry with children—in Diocesan elementary schools, at St. Benedict Academy in Erie, and in her work at the Benedictine Sisters’ Inner-City Neighborhood Art House.
Additionally, for six years in the early 1980s, Sister Mary Ellen spent six months of every year serving at the Mission of Friendship, a ministry in Merida, Yucatan, Mexico, sponsored by the Catholic Diocese of Erie. There she found the people open, kind, generous, and eager to participate in the mission’s offerings. She did whatever was needed in working with the poor children who came through the mission’s programs. “I think it was there that I truly found myself, my heart,” she said, reflecting on those special experiences. “I found myself doing things I had never done before and that I didn’t know I could do, but in those situations, you just step up and get into whatever needs to be done at the moment.”
Last year she stepped aside from her ministry at the Art House to work in contributed services at the monastery. Here she continues with the same philosophy—helping everywhere, with everything, and whenever help is needed. Her motto these days is the same that she has had all her life: “I help anyone, anytime with whatever they need.”
Sister Mary Ellen is an assistant in the monastery library, sorting, shelving and organizing books, magazines, and other materials. She does similar support work assisting Sister Margaret Ann Pilewski, manager of Chapter 57, the monastery’s gift shop. Sister Mary Ellen’s work with Sister Margaret Ann offered her the opportunity to create art herself and she had two pieces on display in the most recent art show at the monastery.
When asked about her favorite memory during her 60 years of Benedictine life, her immediate response was, “Being on the Ed Sullivan Show as part of our Sisters ’66 musical performance. I could never have imagined that we’d ever be on a television show and with singer Petula Clark, comedian Alan King, and The Rolling Stones.”
