One hundred-eighty-five
hours and counting. This has become the
new reality for Sister Ann John Kotch, a Benedictine who lives here at the
Monastery. I have the joy of living with her.
After a degree and nine years of enjoying teaching, Sister
Ann John heard another call and responded to the Community’s need for
registered nurses. She finished a degree
and began her new career at Marcum and Wallace Hospital in Estill County
Kentucky serving in many nursing capacities at this small hospital. She had many tasks and was especially fond of
working the Emergency Room and with newborn babies.
When it was time to move on she worked in healthcare in
Northern Kentucky. Sister Ann John
started at a Health Clinic for the homeless in Covington Kentucky. She has been duly recognized for her
outstanding years of service there. It
is not stretching the truth too much to say that she was in love with her
work. In addition to working with their
medical problems she looked at the whole person providing connections for their
needs including clean new socks! Many a
Saturday found her shopping for “her guys”. However, after more than thirty years at the clinic it was time for a
change – this time called retirement.
 |
| Sr. Ann John Kotch |
But her heart was still with that work. Hence the search for a volunteer
service. A wonderful match has been
found. She is now working at Faith
Community Pharmacy several times a week. The pharmacy provides medications for those
who cannot afford them. She does a wide variety of tasks—whatever is needed.
(Just ask her and she will happily tell you all about the many different things
she does.) Sister Ann John is especially excited about the time she spends with
the clients helping them to understand their medications and how to best to
take them. Having already volunteered 185
hours she is still as enthusiastic as ever.
I am grateful for time spent with her and to hear details of
her day and her many stories. I pray
that her enthusiasm is catching and I will be one of its recipients.
Sr. Mary Rabe, OSB
Dear Sister, thank you for reminding me about the nursing vocation and how important it is to the charism of sisterhood (and brotherhood). As our world has become more outwardly peaceful and ordered, and the institutions of modern life have become firmly and properly established, I can see that nurses hold a key to the future for the charisms, where the inner and outer goodness of a monastery might be witnessed. To serve as a nurse (male or female) -- what does that mean? Love in action, daily patience, worship in the work of healing? There is something so deeply good here that perhaps we have an answer here to the problem we need to solve. There is also, however, a change here -- in some places the nurses are all women, and they only want them to be women, and likewise they only want men to be doctors, yet in another place half the doctors are women, and more and more men choose to be nurses. I confess that I often think back and wish I had taken that path (to be a male nurse), though it is easy to idealize a very demanding job. God bless the nurses of the whole world, in every nation and culture, amen God bless OSB amen.
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