Sr. Fran Gorsuch, Vocation Formation Team

As the sixth of eight children whose parents operated a restaurant and bar in upstate New York, Sr. Fran was exposed to all different kinds of folks from an early age. “I loved meeting people from various backgrounds and my parents taught us to not to fear, but to embrace all kinds of people.”

In her senior year of high school, Sr. Fran met a home missionary sister which “lit a fire inside me and became a dream I didn’t know I had. The thought of not being confined to a convent and visiting people in their homes, with the world as my oyster so to speak, had tremendous appeal,” she recalls. While her family teased that the extroverted teen would never survive without being on the phone and listening to the radio, they fully supported her decision to join the missionary order in 1963.

“Eventually I found the charism of the Sisters of Bon Secours resonated even more deeply with me than that of my original order. The concept of a hospital without walls, a wellness of the community, and the internationality of the order with its broader, global perspective drew me in, so I decided to transfer to the Sisters of Bon Secours in 2002,” says Sr. Fran.

Since the transfer is a three-year, vocation-evolution process in itself, Sr. Fran is especially qualified to serve on the Vocation Formation Team. “It all goes back to our original sisters who went out into the community to serve just as we now invite women of faith and ability who want to be about something greater than themselves. We look for self-starters with passion and leadership qualities who want to be part of a group, with all the support that offers.”

As a member of the Vocation Formation team, Sr. Fran has input into such matters as what a candidate’s ministry might be. She explains the educational opportunities available to her. Sr. Fran serves as a companion sister which involves meeting with the interested woman on a monthly basis and sharing with the potential candidate her own life experience and what being a Sister of Bon Secours means to her. Besides these focused conversations, Sr. Fran invites her to community events and helps the community get to know her.

Being part of the Vocation Formation team has allowed her to get to know the sisters better and make new friends, and she brings her valued experience in youth ministry to the role. The team designs the Formation Program which considers where to place candidates in the local community and meets monthly to discuss new candidates and how they are faring.

Welcomed into the community wholeheartedly

As a transfer sister, Sr. Fran noticed how from day one the community included her in every aspect of our life, how learning is considered a two-way street and that a deep respect is shown for the ideas and feelings of the candidates. “The team has such different personalities, like facets of a diamond, each shining on their own but more luminous in its unity.”

Sr. Fran takes great sustenance from her full-time job as Vice President of Mission at Good Samaritan Health System in Suffern, New York, ensuring that the mission and values of the Sisters of Bon Secours and our co-sponsor, the Sisters of Charity, are enacted in the daily operation of the hospital. She works closely with staff, management, labor unions and ethics committees, as well as outreach to the community’s marginalized, making sure they are always treated with care and respect.

On the hospital’s leadership team, Sr. Fran is an active member of the budget committee and does state and federal advocacy on financial issues. “I try to help humanize bureaucracy,” she sighs and wishes she had more time with her community, the staff and patients.

One young mother stands out in her memory. Sr. Fran met her while working with parents in the Head Start program. The woman was being abused by her husband and had three little children. Sr. Fran found a distant family member with whom they could be safe and donations enabled her to buy the family clothes and airfare to take them to their new life. She felt God used her as an instrument and she marveled at the vulnerable woman’s courage.

Living in Fairhaven, New Jersey with Sisters Carol Frawley and Rose Marie Jasinski, she loves spending time with friends, people watching, cooking— and just sitting down to read— when not interrupted by their frisky feline, Molly.

She feels a woman interested in the life of a Sister of Bon Secours, if she has the desire and capability, would receive the grace to live that life and would never regret her decision. “It’s such a blessing to be in a community of great diversity in thought and interests where community is valued but there is also great autonomy. You are at the service of so many unmet needs that you couldn’t handle as well individually, and that truly is a gift.”