Two members of the Notre Dame de Sion Vocation team, Sister Celia Deutsch and Sion associate, Dr. Alisha Pomazon, flew into Kansas City Friday, April 5 to do service work around the city and connect with the grade school and high school while speaking about vocations and the Sion charism. 

“We have five members on the vocation team to talk about God’s calling,” Director of Campus Ministry and member of vocation team Stephanie Pino-Dressman said. “We have two in Canada, two in Brooklyn, New York, and one in Kansas City.”

The team spent their first morning in Kansas City sorting donations at Uplift, an organization dedicated to helping the homeless and providing basic necessities and care. The next day they attended a Sunday morning Mass at St. James, a multicultural parish.

“They loved the Mass. They loved the way they were welcomed into the parish and they really enjoyed the singing,” theology teacher and member of St. James Church Bonnie Hagharian said.

They spent Monday discussing vocation in the high school chapel each hour with the religion classes. They work to offer guidance and wisdom to students searching for their vocation and to find God’s calling every step of life.

“God calls us to be human, to be decent, and to be the best that we can be,” Deutsch said.

Deutsch taught at the grade school from 1972-1974 and still lives in the Sion community in Brooklyn, New York. She graduated with a Ph. D. from the University of St. Michael of the University of Toronto in New Testament and Jewish studies. She also taught in the Department of Religion at Barnard College and now continues to work there as a research scholar. Additionally, she is involved in interfaith understanding with the Interfaith Coalition of Brooklyn, an alliance that includes Catholic, Jewish, and Muslim communities in central Brooklyn. Most of the participants are immigrants, many undocumented ones.

“I’ve always known I wanted to be a nun from nudges in my heart,” Deutsch said. “My dad was Jewish and my mom was Catholic so we faced a lot of prejudice, which was something I never understood as a child, but I attended a Catholic school taught by a nun. I knew I wanted to be her.”

Pomazon teaches as an assistant professor of religion and culture at St. Thomas College of the University of Saskatoon. She completed her Ph.D. in Religious Studies at McMaster University in 2010. Pomazon is currently teaching six classes including Jewish-Christian Relations, Death and Dying, Monsters, Western Religions, and Myths of Methodologies. Pomazon said her favorite class is Monsters because it discusses treating different people from various backgrounds, in which she was inspired from a former co-worker.

“I love teaching. I love the exchange of ideas and if I wasn’t teaching I don’t think I would have half of the ideas that I do,” Pomazon said. “I love Sion because it provides a space where people feel comfortable using their voices without being defensive or apologetic.”