Aquinas Institute of Theology is pleased to announce the 2012 recipients of the St. Rose of Lima Society awards, recognizing women who have made significant contributions to the life of the Catholic Church and the ministry of Jesus. Sister Julia Huiskamp, DC, will be honored with the Lifetime Achievement Award. Corliss Cox, Kathleen Davis, Rosario Gasquet, and Sister Carolyn Sur, SSND, will be honored as Pillars of Dominican Spirituality. Their induction will take place at the St. Rose of Lima Society Luncheon on Thursday, March 29, 2012, at 11:30 am, at the Chase Park Plaza, 212 North Kingshighway, Saint Louis, Missouri.
This Year's Honorees
Sister Julia Huiskamp, DC, is being honored with St. Rose of Lima Society’s Lifetime Achievement Award for her service to children in poor communities in Chicago and East Saint Louis, and as a children’s advocate on local, state, and national levels for housing, education, health care, and social services. She left a career as a reporter for the Keokuk Daily Gate City Newspaper after deciding she wanted her life’s work “to be more than a piece of newsprint that could be used to wrap someone’s garbage and thrown away.” In 1959 she entered the Daughters of Charity. Working with the Coalition for Decent Housing, Sister started The Griffin House, a youth program now grown to six sites serving more than 750 children.
Corliss Cox is being honored as a Pillar of Dominican Spirituality. She serves as the coordinator of Youth Ministry at the Saint Charles Lwanga Center, and is committed to the planning and implementation of the KUJENGA Leadership Conference, the facilitation of 7 Habits for Effective Pre-Teens and the Fallible Human Beings Teen group. Corliss is in formation as an Associate of the Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet, and is a liturgical minister at St. Augustine parish in St. Louis.
Kathleen Davis will be honored as a Pillar of Dominican Spirituality. Kathleen leads youth ministry and RCIA at Mary Queen of Peace, in Webster Groves, Missouri, leading teen “survivor retreats” that foster lives of service and awareness of homeless people’s struggles. She also leads Luke 18 retreats preparing seventh and eighth graders to live the Gospel. Kathleen serves as a hospital chaplain at Cardinal Glennon Hospital and is the Volunteer coordinator for Covenant House Missouri.
Rosario Gasquet will be honored as a Pillar of Dominican Spirituality for service in her native Peru providing services for adoptive families. Teaching at Gateway Academy in St. Louis, Rosario established an English as a Second Language program and worked with the school’s Foreign Exchange Students Program. She is founder and director of Estudiantes Misioneros de Apoyo a Peruanos, a non-profit group responsible for missionary trips to Peru.
Sister Carolyn Sur, SSND, is honored as a Pillar of Dominican Spirituality. Sister Carolyn was Campus Minister at Saint Louis University School of Law and Saint Mary-of-the-Woods College in Indiana, and has taught theology courses for the Diocese of Shreveport, Louisiana. Sister Carolyn serves as a member of Metropolitan Congregations United, seeking better living conditions for citizens of Saint Louis.
The St. Rose of Lima Society was founded to recognize and honor those women who exemplify the pillars central to Dominican spirituality. These pillars are: preaching, prayer, study and community. Compelled by Catholic faith and the Dominican tradition, and following in the example of St. Rose of Lima, the members of the St. Rose of Lima Society are true witnesses to the ministry of Jesus Christ today.
A St. Rose of Lima Society member will exemplify at least one of the following Dominican pillars of spirituality:
Preaching – works to spread of the good news of God through her daily life and ministry. She is a luminous and effective witness of the Gospel.
Prayer – views personal contemplation and the scriptures as the source of God’s truth, and has a deep devotion to various forms of daily prayer.
Study – dedicated to the pursuit of knowledge, viewing the benefit of learning as a method to deepen the understanding of truth.
Community – values sharing and integrating her life and faith with people. By respecting, celebrating and participating in society, she connects with the living body of Christ.
The award luncheon and inductions in the Rose of Lima Society will be held on Thursday, March 29th, 2012 at the Chase Park Plaza Hotel in St. Louis. For more information and reservations, please contact Ann Richardson by e-mail at richardson@ai.edu or by phone at 314.256.8877.