Sr.Francesca Thèrése Bozzo, OSF, distributes lunches and shares a laugh with those she calls her “brothers and sisters of the street.”Beverly Hills — God really does call men and women “of all ages from all walks of life,” says Sr. Francesca Thèrése Bozzo, OSF.
Sr. Bozzo, a Bernardine Franciscan sister serving at Our Lady Queen of Martyrs Parish in Beverly Hills, describes herself as a late vocation, having worked for an airlines company before her decision to join religious life.
“I entered the Bernardines in 2003, made my first vows in 2007 and made my final vows in 2010,” said Sr. Bozzo in her recent conversation with The Michigan Catholic — whom she credits for finding her Franciscan calling.
Back in 2000, the future Sr. Bozzo planned to go to the Holy Land, but was nervous for her safety.
“I promised the Lord that for a safe trip, I would do some type of community work,” she said. After returning from a safe visit, she picked up a copy of The Michigan Catholic and found an advertisement in the back from St. Aloysius Parish.
The ad requested volunteers to serve coffee and doughnuts to homeless individuals on Sunday mornings during the parish’s Bible study. Sr. Bozzo said she didn’t know anything about serving the homeless, but decided she would do it.
“I had it all planned out,” she said. “I would do days of service for the number of days I was kept safe in the Holy Land. I went down to St. Al’s … and they totally changed my heart and my life.”
She met the Franciscan friars who run the parish, and it “changed my life watching them give dignity to the homeless and marginalized. I fell in love with what they stood for.”
The pastor at the time, Fr. Mark Soehner, OFM, invited her to stay for Mass one day, and she surprised herself by saying yes. There, she found her niche in the small parish community, as well as the “powerful singing and powerful homilies.”
“For the first time in my life I couldn’t wait to go to Mass,” said Sr. Bozzo, who had been raised Catholic.
Sr. Bozzo grew up Downriver, but after her encounter with St. Aloysius’ ministries, it became her parish: “I was in a Franciscan parish, which is where I found my Franciscan heart and Franciscan vocation.”
And that advertisement?
“I found out from Fr. Mark that it was the only ad in the paper (for the Bible study ministry) in several years,” she said.
Strangers’ questions
Sr. Francesca Thèrése Bozzo, OSF, graduated summa cum laude from Sacred Heart Major Seminary in 2014.At one point, the future Sr. Bozzo traveled to Lisieux in honor of St. Thèrése of Lisieux, the 19th-century saint. She spent time with a young woman who was also on pilgrimage there, and who was planning to enter a religious community shortly.
The woman told the future Sr. Bozzo, “you need to open your heart,” to religious life, Sr. Bozzo recalled. On her way back to Paris, she was again asked by a stranger if she planned to become a nun.
“I said, ‘You never know what the Lord has in store for you,’” said Sr. Bozzo, though in her own head she thought, “Why did you say that? The answer is no!”
Then on her flight from Paris back to Detroit, a flight attendant asked as well. With all these random inquiries, she began to wonder whether God was truly calling her.
Besides St. Al’s Bible study, she began helping with the children’s ministry, lectoring and serving as an extraordinary ministry of Holy Communion.
She began to feel God “pulling me in a different direction,” said Sr. Bozzo. She began to attend daily Mass and Eucharistic adoration.
Then The Michigan Catholic resurfaced. She read an article about a Felician sister who was a late-in-life vocation, and then learned about an upcoming Felician “come-and-see” in which the community opens its doors for discerning women.
“When I saw that, that’s when I actively started pursing religious life,” said Sr. Bozzo.
While she determined the Felicians were not her calling, she followed her Franciscan spirituality to the Bernardine Franciscans.
All in a day’s work
In 2014, Sr. Bozzo graduated from Sacred Heart Major Seminary summa cum laude with a bachelor’s in pastoral theology.
Today, she lives at Divine Child Parish in Dearborn with five other Bernardine sisters. The Bernardines’ motherhouse is in Pennsylvania, but their local community is in Farmington Hills. About 22 sisters serve the Metro Detroit area.
Only a month after graduating, Sr. Bozzo began working for Our Lady Queen of Martyrs Parish as the Christian service coordinator, a role that is “different every day,” she said.
“My morning starts with morning prayer and daily Mass, and every day I kiss my veil and thank God for the gift of life, the gift of faith and the gift of my Franciscan vocation,” she said. “That’s a daily tradition.”
Sr. Bozzo also prays a daily holy hour before the Blessed Sacrament, and though she and her fellow sisters are quite busy with their individual ministries, they gather for 5 p.m. Liturgy of the Hours and dinner at day’s end.
The daytime hours see Sr. Bozzo set up service projects, bring the Eucharist to the homebound, register infants for baptism, distribute items from the parish food pantry, and many other tasks.
Sometimes she visits the students at the parish elementary school; sometimes she goes out to the streets and distributes food and hand warmers to those in need. Recently, she helped serve a meal at St. Patrick’s Senior Center in Detroit.
Sr. Bozzo helps the elementary students, youth group, American Heritage Girls club and others organize their service projects, and during this past Catholic Schools Week coordinated a blanket-making and card-making project to give to veterans.
When she is able, Sr. Bozzo assists Fr. Scott Thibodeau or Deacon Christopher Beltowski with baptisms: “Every day is different, which I absolutely love. It doesn’t get old; it doesn’t get boring.”
Sr. Bozzo still lectors and distributes Communion, and during Lent participates in a local 40 Days for Life prayer vigil for an end to abortion. She leads a newly formed vocations commission “to promote vocations awareness in our parish,” and has given several vocations talks around the archdiocese.
Through her whirlwind of ministries, Sr. Bozzo says she is always grateful “to actually see those who are hungry, to just be present. It’s all about giving dignity to our brothers and sisters in need, whether on the streets or in soup kitchens or in the pews.”
