About Beyond the Habit

Sister Erin McDonald

Sister Erin McDonald, CSJ, serves as Digital Youth Minister for the Congregation of St Joseph. Prior to this she served as University Minister for Service and Social Justice at the University of Detroit Mercy and previously she served as a case manager at Freedom House Detroit where she worked survivors of torture and persecution seeking asylum in the United States and Canada. During novitiate, Sister Erin also volunteered as a case manager with Catholic Charities Migration and Refugee Services in Cleveland, OH. Sister Erin also spent two years working as a humanitarian aid worker in Rwanda with Jesuit Refugee Services.
 
Originally from Massachusetts, Sister Erin had an early connection with the Sisters of St. Joseph of Boston. “When I was a child, my grandmother took me to work with her at St. Raphael’s Convent in Boston.  She sat me in the kitchen with her while she cooked for the sisters. Those sisters influenced my earliest memories,” she recalls fondly.
 
During the summer of 2000, Erin came to Wheeling, WV, and connected with the Sisters of St. Joseph when she participated in the Volunteers in Mission Program. Soon thereafter she moved to Wheeling to complete her Bachelors in Psychology Degree at Wheeling Jesuit University, and later received her Masters of Social Work degree from West Virginia University. Sister Erin also has a Masters Degree in Pastoral Ministry from Loyola University New Orleans and she is currently working on her certification in Spiritual Direction from Loyola University Chicago. She professed first vows with the Congregation in 2015 and final vows in 2019. Sister Erin currently lives in Detroit, loves visiting local coffee shops, practices yoga, loves reading historical fiction, cooking and her favorite prayer book is Give Us This Day.

Sister Colleen Gibson

Sister Colleen Gibson, SSJ is a writer whose work has been published in various periodicals, including America, Commonweal, Give Us This Day, and the National Catholic Reporter. She currently serves as the Coordinator of Pastoral Care at St. John-St. Paul Catholic Collaborative in Wellesley, MA and has previously ministered as a college campus minister, community organizer, and a founding team member of the SSJ Neighborhood Center in Camden, NJ.

Her firm belief that each person’s story has the ability to reveal God’s presence in the world directs her efforts to bring people into dialogue with their own personal experiences, the stories of others, and the grace of God at work in the world. In addition to her writing, Sister Colleen shares her gifts as a speaker and retreat director, inviting participants to explore issues of call, spirituality, and culture from an Ignatian perspective.

A member of the Sisters of Saint Joseph of Philadelphia, Sister Colleen professed final vows in 2019. Originally from New Jersey, she holds a Master of Theological Studies degree from Boston College School of Theology and Ministry as well as a Bachelor of Arts in American Studies and Religious Studies from Fairfield University. In her free time, she enjoys writing poetry, spending time with family and friends, and exploring places through the lens of a camera!