Living Her Vows of Service Sister’s Gift is to Bring People Together
As a youngster, Cora Marie Billings dressed up in a long skirt and placed
a towel on her head as a veil, pretending to be a Roman Catholic sister.
“I was 3 or 4 years old. I went around the house like that,” she recalled.
“I also put on high heels. I don’t know why, since sisters didn’t wear high
heels then,” said Billings, now 68 and a “real sister.”
“I just celebrated 50 years in the convent and I’m still running around,”
she said, laughing.
Today Billings lives out her faith in the secular world. In June, she became
deputy director of the Virginia Human Rights Council, which acts as a
safeguard for people within the state from unlawful discrimination of any
kind.
She still keeps the vows—poverty, celibacy, obedience, service to the poor
and unfortunate—and prayer life of her religious order. Her faith and belief
is who she is. She doesn’t need to speak it; she witnesses by example. All
women and men should do that, she says.
“I live a good life. A very prayerful life. I’m not always kneeling and
praying. Going from the parking lot to the office, there’s plenty of time to
be praying,” Billings said.
Not What People Expect
When people hear that she’s a Catholic sister, they expect a flying nun from
the 1960s in a black habit, not a tiny black woman in a business suit. Years
ago, the habit was a symbol of commitment, Billings said, who estimates such
an outfit today would cost at least $500.
In keeping with her vow of poverty, she buys her clothes at Goodwill. “For
$3, I can get a professional suit. I buy shoes at Payless, two pair for the
price of one and pay only $14,” she said.
“Nothing I have is really my own,” she continued. The car she drives and the
apartment where she lives belong to her religious order. Even her paycheck
isn’t hers. It goes to her mother house and she receives the same allotment
as the other sisters.
“But the joy and blessings for me is that I’m able to use the gifts and
skills God has given me: being with people and being able to increase
diversity and bring people together and to help people go outside of
themselves and find the joy of other people,” she said.
Catholic Upbringing
An only child, Billings was raised in a Catholic family in Philadelphia. Two
of her aunts were nuns and an uncle attended seminary for a while. When she
was at West Philadelphia Catholic High School, Billings knew she wanted to
teach school and to help people.
On Aug. 22, 1956, at age 17, she became the first African-American to enter
the Sisters of Mercy Merion Regional Community in Pennsylvania, now the
Institute of the Sisters of Mercy of the Americas.
Billings had been in the convent only a month before she started teaching a
class of 40 second graders. “There was a sister teaching first grade who was
my mentor and helped me a lot in the beginning,” she said.
“I lived at the mother house. Every morning after prayers we were driven to
our schools.”
From 1957 to 1959, she worked on the spiritual aspects of her life. Much of
her time was spent learning the Bible and the constitution of the Sisters of
Mercy. She also took theology classes.
Along the way she attended Gwynedd-Mercy College and earned a bachelor’s
degree at Villanova University and a master’s at Saint Charles Borromeo
Seminary, all in Pennsylvania.
She taught for 19 years before moving to Richmond in 1981 to become campus
minister at Virginia State University, a post which she held until 1990.
During that time, Billings also was part-time director of the Diocese of
Richmond’s Office for Black Catholics, which promotes evangelization and
eradication of racism.
A Sister’s Work
In 1990, she was installed as pastoral coordinator of St. Elizabeth Catholic
Church in North Richmond. Billings was the first African - American sister
to hold such a position in the United States. Although she did much of the
work a pastor would do, she could not be called a pastor because in the
Roman Catholic Church, woman cannot be pastors.
At St. Elizabeth, she could give the liturgy, the reading of the day, the
scripture and give out communion that had been consecrated by a priest. She
could also conduct a funeral that did not include Mass, do a wake service
and a graveside service. She could hear confessions but could not give
absolutions.
In 2004, she left St. Elizabeth to go full-time with the Office for Black
Catholics. Last January, feeling the need for a change, Billings stepped
down.
“I took a couple months to have some fun and regroup,” she said. “People are
important to me and I’m always looking at what’s best for the other person
rather than looking out for myself. God has blessed me. I don’t get tired
easily and never get sick. I need to make time to be off. I can do a lot and
it doesn’t tell on me.”
Retirement hasn’t entered her thoughts.
“I’m one of those who is going to die with my boots on.”
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