2026 Jubilee Spotlight

Sister Marguerite Stewart, OSF

Originally from Northampton, Pa., Sister M. Rosaria Shina entered the School Sisters of St. Francis from Blessed Virgin Mary Parish there in 1950, and professed first vows at Mount Assisi Convent in Pittsburgh in 1951. She celebrates her 75th Jubilee in 2026.

Baptized as Josephine Shina, the youngest of three girls followed in the footsteps of her two older sisters who had already chosen religious life. She was drawn to the School Sisters of St. Francis, who had taught her at Blessed Virgin Mary School. Her sister, Martha — better known as Sister Amata Shina — had been received into the Franciscan order three years earlier. “They were who I knew,” she recalls.

Over the course of her 40 years in education, Sister Rosaria taught all the grades, serving in Catholic grade schools in Pennsylvania and New Jersey, and at our former St. Francis Academy in Bethlehem, Pa. “Teaching was the most fruitful of my ministries and a blessing,” Sister says.

When the academy closed in 1987, Sister Rosaria lent her gifts to retreat ministry, serving at our former St. Francis Center for Renewal for more than a decade. She was elected Provincial Minister of the Bethlehem Province in 1998, taking on both the blessings and challenges of leadership for two terms.

After helping with the archives at our congregational headquarters in Rome, Sister returned to ongoing formation ministry at St. Ignatius Loyola in West Lawn, Pa. She later served briefly as chaplain at a retirement community and for four years as an administrative assistant at The Catholic Community of St. Matthias Parish in Somerset, N.J.

Now retired at Monocacy Manor in Bethlehem, Pa., Sister remains committed to prayer ministry and helps with community projects as she is able, including recently helping to prepare 80 lunches for unhoused people in the Lehigh Valley. Through such efforts and plenty of prayer, Sister Rosaria continues to live out her vocation by “being faithful to my religious vows and living the Franciscan Gospel values that I promised to live by.”

Even after 75 years in religious life, her relationship with God continues to deepen and evolve. “I was able to benefit from so many opportunities to know God better,” she says of her life in ministry. “Now, trying to live each day in God’s presence is helping me to deepen my love and gratitude for Him.”

Now 92, Sister Rosaria looks back across the decades and sometimes thinks of herself as young Josephine following those family footsteps into Franciscan life. Enriched by all those she’s served, she has some sage advice she’d share with her teenaged self — advice she, herself, has learned to follow: “Be faithful to prayer. Be faithful to God’s presence in your life.”

While the journey has taken Sister into so many parishes and around the world, she insists that all roads lead to one destination. “I’m looking forward to the day God calls me home,” she says. “That’s where I’m supposed to be.”

To read more about Sister Marguerite’s ministry journey, we encourage you to revisit Living & Learning, a feature-length profile that has been updated in celebration of her 75th Jubilee in 2026.