By Willona Sloan
Alumnae Feature by Cathedral High School

Celebrating National Catholic Sisters Week 2019

National Catholic Sisters Week

Nancy Kellar (right) with her favorite teacher, Sr. Ann Regina, SC, at Cathedral High School with her favorite teacher and sponsor, Sr. Ann Regina

Nancy Kellar (right) as a Cathedral High School student with her favorite teacher and Sisters of Charity sponsor, Sr. Ann Regina.

For Sr. Nancy Kellar, SC ’58, whose three older sisters had attended Cathedral, the high school was the obvious choice. She loved Cathedral, and her history classes were her favorite. Sr. Nancy went on to study history in college, and she earned a master’s degree in European history.

In 1960, she entered the Sisters of Charity, taking the name Sr. Miriam Elizabeth. She began her teaching ministry by teaching 7th grade in St. Anthony’s in the Bronx. After four years there, she was delighted to receive an exciting new assignment: Cathedral High School.

Nine years after she graduated, she returned to Cathedral as a teacher, where she taught history classes for freshmen and sophomore students. “I always tried to make the classes interesting—not just give them dates and facts that were dry and dull, but tell them some of the wonderful stories,” says Sr. Nancy.

She had enjoyed being on the cheerleading squad as a student, and she became the moderator for the cheerleaders on her return. She even taught the girls how to twirl the baton.

Sr. Nancy, then Sr. Miriam Elizabeth, taught at CHS from 1967 to 1971, and enjoyed being cheerleader moderator.

Sr. Nancy, then Sr. Miriam Elizabeth, taught at CHS from 1967 to 1971.

Sr. Nancy had been teaching at Cathedral for four years, when she went on a spiritual retreat, where she heard the speakers talking about the Holy Spirit empowering them and giving them gifts for service.

“At that point, the Holy Spirit was a kind of a vague notion out somewhere, but that weekend I prayed for a new Pentecost, a fresh outpouring of the Holy Spirit. It changed my life,” says Sr. Nancy.

She felt called to evangelize, to work full time preaching and teaching about Jesus. Sr. Nancy tells the story: “That was confirmed one night, when I had a parents meeting, and I started talking to the parents about teaching the New Testament in my homeroom religion classes. There was a deep quiet. I felt a new anointing, the people ‘were cut to the heart,’ as at the first Pentecost. Something in me said, ‘I need to be talking to the parents. I need to be talking to adults about the Gospel.’”

With the blessing of the Mother General of the Sisters of Charity at that time, she left Cathedral in 1971 to begin doing retreat work at the same House of Prayer she recently had attended. In 1975, she helped found St. Elizabeth Seton House of Prayer in Scarsdale, N.Y., where she continues to live and minister.

In addition to leading retreats at the House of Prayer, she has traveled to 48 states, giving retreats and speaking at conferences. She also has served on National and International Councils for the Charismatic Renewal.

“I have been to 63 countries around the world, doing what I love,” says Sr. Nancy. Her book, There’s Always More, has been printed a number of times and translated into different languages.

Sr. Nancy (center) at the 2018 CHS Reunion with Principal Spagnuolo (left) and past Director of Development Regina Cialone.

Sr. Nancy (center) at the 2018 CHS Reunion with Principal Spagnuolo (left) and past Director of Development Regina Cialone.

Along the way, she has learned some incredible lessons. “I have learned that the Lord uses the poor and the broken vessels as an instrument,” says Sr. Nancy.

“So often, when I was called to do a retreat, I would be suffering from a migraine headache, feeling, ‘I’m not up to this,’” says Sr. Nancy. “When I responded to the call, I experienced what we always believed, ‘God anoints us for what he appoints us to’. I experienced the strength to do it, and the anointing of the Holy Spirit as I spoke. I knew that it wasn’t me.”

Wherever her journey has taken her, Sr. Nancy has stayed connected to Cathedral. Most recently, when she attended her 60th reunion at Cathedral, she won the 50/50 raffle of $600. “I had an inkling (again, the Holy Spirit), that I was going to win it, and that I was supposed to give it back to the alumni association for the school,” says Sr. Nancy. She says she was happy to contribute because she feels it is important to make the Cathedral experience available to young women for many years to come.

She recently ran into one of her former Cathedral students, and the conversation touched her heart. “[She said], ‘Sr. Nancy, I remember you loved us.’ It meant so much to me that, that’s what they picked up—that I loved them. I still do,” she says.