'Our most tragic time': Felician Sisters bear loss of 13 sisters to COVID-19 | National Catholic Reporter

'Our most tragic time': Felician Sisters bear loss of 13 sisters to COVID-19 | Global Sisters Report NCR

LIVONIA, MICHIGAN — They were teachers. A librarian. A director of religious education. A secretary in the Vatican Secretariat of State. The author of a 586-page history of the congregation.

One was an organist. One helped her second-grade class write and perform a commercial for Campbell's Soup. One was a nurse and led nursing students' mission trips to Haiti.

All of them were members of the Congregation of the Sisters of St. Felix of Cantalice, or Felician Sisters. They lived together, prayed together and worked together.

The Felician sisters lost during the COVID-19 pandemic

The Congregation of the Sisters of St. Felix of Cantalice, or Felician Sisters, in Livonia, Michigan, remembered their fallen sisters with obituaries and photos, which have been published at Global Sisters Report. Click here to read the complete 13 obituaries.

And in one awful month — from Good Friday, April 10, to May 10 — 12 sisters died of COVID-19. Eighteen other Felician Sisters at the convent in Livonia, Michigan, had the illness caused by the novel coronavirus, as well.

"We couldn't contain the grief and the sorrow and the emotional impact," said Sr. Noel Marie Gabriel, director of clinical health services for the Felician Sisters of North America. "We went through the motions of doing what we had to do, but that month was like a whole different way of life. That was our most tragic time. It was a month of tragedy and sorrow and mourning and grieving."

But as the world grapples with the economic and social fallout of the continuing pandemic, survivors are discovering that the virus can cause lasting damage and recovery may not mean a return to full health: One of the 18 sisters who initially survived the illness died from its effects June 27, making her the 13th victim in the Livonia convent.