GREENSBURG, Pa., — Sister Rachel Blais celebrated her Silver Jubilee as a Sister of Charity of Seton Hill, Greensburg, on July 10. She is a native of Lewiston, Maine.

Blais entered the congregation of women religious on Aug. 28, 1986, from Queen of Peace Parish in Hawley, Pa., where she held her first job as the parish’s youth minister from 1982 to 1986. Now in her 25th year of religious life, Sister Rachel serves as vocation director for the Sisters of Charity, a position to which she was appointed in 2006. She also ministers as a pastoral associate at Saint Mary Church in Star City, West Va.

In her four-year pastoral ministry at Saint Mary Church, Sister Rachel finds blessing in working with people who are becoming Catholics through the Right of Christian Initiation for Adults process. In addition to directing the RCIA program, Sister Rachel visits parish shut-ins. She recognizes the challenges of developing relationships with people who inevitably face hospice care and death but is honored to be part of their spiritual journey. She relates, “It makes me humble to see how they adapt to their situation and how spiritual they are.”

Sister Rachel has extended her ministry of compassion to the poor and disenfranchised of the West Virginia community as a volunteer at the Federal Corrections Institution in Morgantown since 2003, and as a three-year board member for Empty Bowls of Monongalia County, a nonprofit organization committed to alleviating hunger.

Prior to her work at Saint Mary Church, Sister Rachel touched the lives of countless youth in three states. She was campus minister at Saint John University Parish, the Catholic parish for West Virginia University in Morgantown from 2001 to 2006. Between 1986 and 2001, she served students in the dioceses of Phoenix and Tucson in Arizona and the dioceses of Greensburg and Pittsburgh in Pennsylvania in ministry roles that included religion teacher, campus minister, youth minister and director of religious education. In addition, Sister Rachel was the activities director from 1986-87 at Assumption Hall, the former retirement home of the Sisters of Charity in Greensburg.

Sister Rachel began her religious life after earning a bachelor’s degree in psychology and religious studies from Merrimack College, a graduate certificate in youth ministry and a master’s degree in religious education from LaSalle University in 1985. She earned a second master’s degree in social work from West Virginia University in 2009 while ministering in West Virginia.

For additional information about the Sisters of Charity of Seton Hill and their ministries, visit www.scsh.org.

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