August 2, 2007

By Jennie D. Latta

On Wednesday, August 15, 2007, the Solemnity of the Assumption, Sister Ann McKean will celebrate fifty years of religious life.

Born Margaret Ann McKean on August 1, 1935, Sister Ann originally contemplated becoming a Methodist missionary. The Lord had other plans for her, however. On her eighteenth birthday, Sister Ann became a Roman Catholic.

After graduating from Decatur High School in Decatur, Indiana, where she was born, Sister worked for a year for the Poor Handmaid Sisters at St. Vincent Villa Orphanage in Fort Wayne, before entering St. Agnes Convent in Fond du Lac, Wisconsin in 1954. After her postulancy and novitiate, she was professed a Sister of St. Agnes on August 15, 1957.

Sister Ann completed a Bachelor's Degree in education at Marian College and taught in Wisconsin, New York, and Illinois. She later earned a Master's Degree in scripture from Manhattan College in Riverdale, New York, and was hired by the Paulist Fathers to teach scripture and serve in campus ministry at the University of Texas at Austin. Sister Ann was the first woman to hold the University Bible Chair at the University of Texas. She earned a Ph.D. in theology from Vanderbilt University.

Sister Ann has served as Associate Professor of Theology at Marian College in Fond du Lac, Professor of Systematic Theology at Sacred Heart School of Theology in Hales Corner, Wisconsin, and, for the past twenty years, as Associate Professor of Religion at Christian Brothers University in Memphis. In 1995, she was appointed by her congregation as their representative to the United Nations Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing, China. At the conference, she led a workshop on the advancement of women in world religions.

Today, Sister Ann continues to carry a full teaching load at CBU, while also teaching scripture and theology in Central America during her winter breaks. Her current research interest is the growth of the lay associate movement among religious communities in the United States.

In July, Sister Ann returned to the motherhouse of the Congregation of St. Agnes in Fond du Lac to celebrate her golden jubilee with fourteen others who had entered religious life with her in 1957. In addition to the golden jubilarians, there were sisters celebrating fifteen, forty, sixty, seventy, seventy-five, and even ninety years of religious life.

The weekend celebration capped the annual "CSA Days" when all the sisters and associates gather to conduct the business of the congregation and enjoy fellowship together. The sisters enjoyed time with their associates recalling many happy memories with skits and stories honoring the jubilarians. This was followed by a public Liturgy during which each of the sisters renewed their vows to live the remaining years of their lives in celibate chastity, poverty, and obedience to the Congregation of St. Agnes.