In professing perpetual vows, Omahan joins 19 relatives as Sisters of Mercy

When Sister of Mercy Marissa Butler, a chaplain at Creighton University Medical Center-Bergan Mercy in Omaha, professed her perpetual vows, she became the 20th member of her extended family to fully enter the religious order.

Sister Marissa remembered those relatives as she professed vows June 15 at St. James Church in Chicago.

Two employees from the Omaha office of the Sisters of Mercy – Communications Director Maureen Falcon and Director of Mission Advancement Lynn Poly – had created an embroidered cloth that was placed on the altar for the ceremony. On the cloth were stitched the names of the 19 relatives and the years of each sister’s perpetual profession. Those names included Sister Marissa and the year 2024. Unfortunately, those 19 women have all died, the last one in 1997.

“June 15th was the most joyful and radiant day of my life as I was able to publicly celebrate the work God has been doing in my life,” Sister Marissa said.

During the ceremony, Sister Susan Sanders, president of the Institute of the Sisters of Mercy of the Americas, presented Sister Marissa with her ring, inscribed with the motto “Into Your Hands.” The ring had previously belonged to Sister of Mercy Mary Alexia Ryan, one of Sister Marissa’s relatives, who passed away in 1983.

The Communion hymn, Into Your Hands, was composed for Sister Marissa by musician John Angotti upon her reception into the Sisters of Mercy in 2015. Angotti, the director of music and liturgy at St. Philip Church in Franklin, Tennessee, based the lyrics on a poem of the same title written by Sister Marissa.

Other Sisters of Mercy also played important roles in the profession ceremony.

Sister Carol Mucha from Chicago and Sister Katherine Ann Rappl from Rochester, New York, were the witnesses to the vows.

Sister Marissa lived in community with Sister Katherine Ann in 2020, along with Sisters Arlene Semesky and Joanne Deck. Sisters Arlene and Joanne died tragically in an auto accident in 2023. Sisters Marissa and Katherine Ann were injured in the collision.

The deceased sisters were remembered throughout the profession ceremony, and Sister Katherine Ann’s presence as a witness was especially poignant, the Sisters of Mercy said in a press release.

Sister Marissa professes her vows as witnesses look on. The witnesses, from left, are Sister Carol Mucha, Sister Katherine Ann Rappl and Sister Susan Sanders, president of the Institute of the Sisters of Mercy of the Americas. COURTESY PHOTO

Throughout the Instruction on the Vows, Sister Eileen Campbell spoke of a potter creating a vessel as a metaphor for God guiding and shaping Sister Marissa through her vows of chastity, poverty, obedience and service to the poor, sick and uneducated.  “When we reflect on ourselves as clay from the potter’s perspective,” she said, “we cannot but help feel that we are held tenderly with all our brokenness and loved unconditionally beyond all understanding.”

“Let us rejoice,” she concluded, “in the vessel you have become and recommit ourselves to being shaped and reshaped into vessels that bring love and mercy to all of creation.”

Sister Marissa entered the Sisters of Mercy in 2015 in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. She professed temporary vows in January 2021 in Waterloo, Iowa, renewing those vows in 2023. During her formation, she ministered with schools, hospitals and social services providers.

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