Our Sister Bonaventure
Our Sister Bonaventure
Rob Rogers
Marin Independent Journal
May 7, 2007
As a child growing up in San Mateo, Philip Kilbridge heard stories of the "running nun," a Dominican sister of San Rafael who won medals for her remarkable talent as a marathoner.
Even so, when Kilbridge met Sister Marion Irvine, he was astounded by her energy.
"I ran cross country and grew up in the Bay Area, so I knew of her as a kind of legend," says Kilbridge, executive director of Habitat for Humanity San Francisco. "And I knew that as a long-distance runner, and a Dominican sister, she must have had a lot of energy. But there was a day when she and the other Dominican sisters came to San Francisco to volunteer for us, and spent the entire day on the construction site.
"It wasn't a simple project. There was a lot of electrical work," Kilbridge says. "But she kept working with the support staff, and she wouldn't go until she finished it, about six or seven hours later. After that, I called her 'The Electric Nun.'"
Since 1999, Sister Marion has served as promoter of social justice for the Dominican Sisters. In that position, she's worked as a tireless crusader for human rights. In addition to her work with Habitat for Humanity and the Worker Justice Alliance, Sister Marion has helped to organize protests against the Iraq war, globalization of trade and executions at San Quentin State Prison.
Her work has earned her the recognition of the Marin County Human Rights Commission, which honored her as a Martin Luther King Jr. Humanitarian in January. Most recently, she has taken a stand against the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids on San Rafael's Canal Area in March and worked to help members of the community recover from the action.
When she was asked by her order to take the position eight years ago, however, Sister Marion didn't think she was the right person for the job. She'd recently returned to San Rafael after a lengthy career as a teacher and competitive runner and had expected to enjoy a quiet retirement in the convent where she'd earned her college degree.
"I had no idea why they'd asked me to do it," says Sister Marion, 77, a tall, athletic woman with the brisk, focused manner of a lifelong teacher. "It had been so long since I was here (in San Rafael) that I'm not sure I knew about the Canal district. I didn't know anything about the conditions for workers at the Embassy Suites hotel. I really wasn't aware of the social justice issues in my own community."
Sister Marion's education began when she traveled with another Dominican sister to the World Trade Organization protests in Seattle in 1999. It was a "life-changing experience," says Sister Marion, who studied everything she could about fair trade, workers' salaries and living conditions in Central America and the Caribbean.
"I'm concerned about what happened in the Canal during the ICE raids and the wages of our county's home-care workers," she says. "But I'm also concerned about the people who are starving in Haiti. It's not just local issues - it's immigration and trafficking in women and children as well as global warming, Colombian crime and the war in Iraq."
For Sister Marion, who celebrated her 50th year as a nun in 1999, learning about issues of social justice has done more than transform the way she looks at the world. It also changed her relationship with God.
"Once I became immersed in social justice issues, I began to read the Gospels differently," Sister Marion says. "I began to see Jesus as a revolutionary. He turned the politics of the day upside down, became the champion of the poor and the marginalized. He was concerned with preventing injustice."
That connection between her work and her faith is especially important, says the Rev. Carol Hovis, executive director of the Marin Interfaith Council, for which Sister Marion serves as secretary to the board.
"The stereotype of the Roman Catholic nun is obedient, quiet, polite, respectable," Hovis says. "And yet, the Dominican Sisters have always taken the lead on justice issues. When we had the protests against the ICE raids, they all showed up. Sister Marion is their voice on all of those issues: the death penalty, the war in Iraq, San Quentin."
Born and raised in San Francisco, Sister Marion was inspired to enter the religious life while attending St. Rose Academy.
"I just fell in love with the life," she says. "All of the sisters seemed to be having such a good time. They seemed to love working with kids, and they were lovely people themselves. And they were teachers, which is what I wanted to be.
"You know, at 17, when I entered the novitiate, the options for women were to be a teacher, a mother, a secretary or a nurse. That was one of the draws of the religious life. I can't imagine myself as a housewife."
As Sister Bonaventure, she earned her bachelor of science in biology at Dominican College and began her career as a teacher in 1953 at St. Vincent Ferrer High School in Vallejo.
"I taught English, math, science, religion - pretty much everything except for social studies and foreign language," Sister Marion says. "I loved being a teacher."
Sister Marion remained in the classroom for more than 20 years in Monterey and Stockton and served as principal of several schools in the Bay Area, including six years as school supervisor for the Dominican Sisters, for almost 30. Along the way, she earned her master's in education and administrative services credential.
She also began a second career as a runner.
"In 1979, my niece told me she was concerned about me, because I was grossly overweight," Sister Marion says. "She thought that I needed to change my lifestyle, that it would be good for me.
"At the time, it was thought that I was too old to run. Certainly there were few older women who were running competitively. But after I started to run, I discovered early on that I had a talent for it."
That talent propelled Sister Marion to worldwide attention as a competitive runner for the next 15 years.
In 1983 she qualified for the U.S. Olympic Trials in the marathon, at age 54, by running 2 hours, 51 minutes, 1 second at the California International Marathon in Sacramento. She shattered all major running records in the 50-54, 55-59 and 60-64 age groups, earning a five-year sponsorship by Nike and competing in track events in Australia, Canada, Finland and Switzerland.
"I feel that running made me more compassionate, because it made me more social," Sister Marion says. "It quickened my intellect and made a lot of positive changes to my lifestyle."
In 1989, at what she considers the highlight of her running career, Sister Marion earned five gold medals at the World Veterans Games in Eugene, Ore., in events ranging from the 1,500 to the 10,000 meters.
Nicknamed "The Flying Nun," Sister Marion became, as she puts it, "a person of some note," appearing on television with Phil Donahue and "Good Morning America." While her passion for running was supported - if not necessarily understood - by her fellow sisters, her television appearances were sometimes questioned, she says.
"The camera crews would always want to show three views of me: one of me in my habit at school, one of me teaching kindergartners how to read, and one of me running in Golden Gate Park," she says. "Some of the sisters who saw the video were older, and a little more conservative. They liked the video of me in chapel and teaching, but they didn't see why there had to be a video of me running in my shorts. But that was who I was."
Four years later, Sister Marion decided to retire from the sport.
"In 1993, I was still running 10Ks. I woke up one morning, and decided I'd try the half-marathon," Sister Marion says. "I ran it in just under an hour and a half - 1:29:47 - and decided after that to hang up my shoes. I still run, and when I'm invited, I still like to be in races with the old gang. But that was my last competitive race."
While she's often credited for her highly public stands on social issues, Sister Marion's supporters say she does some of her best work behind the scenes.
"She has the power to command a room when she walks into it," Kilbridge says. "But she doesn't need to be the center of attention. I often see her working by herself on a volunteer project, just getting it done."
An outspoken opponent of the death penalty, Sister Marion has led candlelight vigils at San Quentin during every execution since 2000, when her order took a formal stance against the measure. She has signed a document that requests that, should she become a murder victim, her killer not be executed. And she regularly visits a death row prisoner.
"I was listening to a speech by Sister Helen Prejean, following the publication of her book, 'Dead Man Walking,'" Sister Marion says. "I became interested in the issue, and she said if you were interested in being the pen pal of a prisoner, to put a card in her basked with your name and cell phone number. I did. After I'd been pen pals for a while, the prisoner asked if I would feel comfortable coming in for a visit."
She said the most difficult part of the experience is cutting through bureaucratic red tape.
"You can visit on any Thursday, Friday or Saturday that you want to, but you have to call exactly a week before, from 8 to 10 a.m., to make an appointment. Generally, the line is busy the whole time, and that means you don't get to go. When you do get to go, it's scary. You can take in your car keys and $4 in change that you can use to buy the inmate something from a vending machine. You're screened, you're stamped, and that's it. You're locked into that cage."
Those who work with her say Sister Marion displays the same determination, energy and strength of will as promoter of social justice that she did as a competitive runner.
"She's a thinker. She brings to all of it the strength that an educator - a teacher, a principal - has," Hovis says. "She doesn't waste time. She's always, 'chop-chop. Let's get it done.'
"We were involved in helping to put pressure on the management of Embassy Suites to allow their workers to organize," Hovis continues. "We talked with the hotel manager at the time, and with members of the San Rafael Chamber of Commerce, and it became a heated meeting in which they tried to politely correct us. Sister Marion and I stuck to the point that these workers needed better wages."
That determination comes from her compassion, Hovis says.
"She gets so mad about these issues," Hovis says. "But before she gets mad, she gets sad. Her heart is broken. And then she decides to do something about it."
She also has a terrific sense of humor, according to Hovis.
"She's not embarrassed easily," Hovis says. "This past fall, we were getting ready to start a prayer meeting when Sister Marion walked in dressed like Elvis. I couldn't believe it. I laughed my head off.
"I had completely forgotten it was Halloween," she says.
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