Religious Milestones: Felician Sister Rebecca Piatek, 60 years

Reflecting on her six decades as a religious, Felician Sister Rebecca Piatek said, “My heart is filled with gratitude for the many blessings and graces I have received as a Felician Sister and for all who have walked and who continue to walk this journey with me, especially my dearest family and friends,” she said. “I am so grateful for what I have received, what I am receiving, and those who work with me.” 

As the only girl and youngest of four children, the early years attending religious education classes at St. Stanislaus Kostka Parish, Sayreville, gave Sister Rebecca a foundation for her love of the consecrated life through interactions with the Felician Sisters.

The Sisters also facilitated the parish’s Children of Mary Sodality lay ministry, of which Sister Rebecca was a member, and were a distinct and reverent presence at parish devotions to the Blessed Sacrament where she often spent time. These connections piqued her interest to learn more about the order’s heritage, charism, and foundress, Blessed Mary Angela Truzkowska, a Polish religious who followed the values and ideas of St. Francis of Assisi and St. Felix of Cantalice.

The joy and dedication to God and the Blessed Mother exuded from the Felician Sisters was so awe-inspiring to the 18-year-old she fully immersed herself into the formation process to become more like them. Her parents and three brothers wholly supported her decision to enter the convent after high school. They continued their love and support until God called each of them home.

With a degree from Felician College, now University, and post-graduate studies at Villanova University (Pa.). Sister Rebecca taught religion and language arts to sixth-, seventh-, and eighth-grade students at Catholic schools in Camden, Clifton, Passaic, Spotswood, and McLean, Va., before transitioning into the role of principal; first at St. Stephen Parish School, Perth Amboy then, upon consolidation, Perth Amboy Catholic School for nearly four decades.

“I believe that as a Catholic school principal for 38 years, my greatest accomplishment was being able to surround myself with faculty and staff who were people of true faith and who shared the values that allowed us to provide a recognizably strong Catholic identity in the school,” she stated.

Sister Rebecca has received accolades for her work including: Polish World American Citizen of the Year; diocesan Regina Nostra Award and Outstanding Educator of the Year; a resolution from the Perth Amboy City Council; the Knights of Columbus’ Principal’s Award; Who’s Who Among America’s Teachers, and a New Jersey Joint Legislative Resolution.

Upon “graduating,” as she calls it, from serving as principal in 2018, she accepted a position as pastoral associate at St. Helena Parish, Edison, and staff assistant at its elementary school.

“I knew that I still wanted to be involved in education and be open to parish work,” she said of the “double blessing” she enjoys each day: that of teaching religion once a week to students of different grade levels in the school as well as being privileged to minister to the parish and its parishioners.    

“I’ve always loved children,” she said. “I’m happy to still have a hand in forming the hearts of the children and hopefully helping them, by example and in instruction, also to come to know Jesus better and to love him more.”

To relax away from work, she is a true enigmatologist.

“I’m really a word person,” she said. “So, when I have free time I like to do puzzles, jumbles, cryptograms – those kinds of things that entertain my brain.”

For those discerning a path of consecrated life, prayers to the Holy Spirit as well as becoming acquainted with religious communities is beneficial to exploring life as a religious according to Sister Rebecca, who hopes that she has imparted that same joy as a Felician Sister to the youth she has encountered during her six decades within the Church.