Sister Rose Anthony Mathews works on a jigsaw puzzle, one of her many hobbies, in her apartment at the Benedictine community at the Shrine of Our Lady of the Snows in Belleville. In July, she celebrated her 70th anniversary as an Adorer of the Blood of Christ (photo: David Wilhelm).
“If you write just one sentence about me,” said Sister Rose Anthony Mathews, ASC, “you would say, ‘Life has been a gift from God – my life, my family, my friends, everyone I have met – everything has been a gift.'”
Sister Rose Anthony recently celebrated her 70th anniversary as an Adorer of the Blood of Christ.
“It’s interesting to see how God orchestrates things,” she said. “I believe all of life is a series of connections. The sooner we realize how connected we are, how much life is about connection, the better off we are, and the better we can be the hands and feet of Christ.”
Sister Rose Anthony, 88, made her first profession of vows on July 1, 1954, and her final vows on July 1, 1959.
She was born in Prairie du Rocher, one of four children in the family of Arthur and Rose Mathews. The family lived on a farm with many animals. The levees had not yet been built, so the farm was often flooded.
The family attended St. Joseph’s Catholic Church and School in Prairie du Rocher. They were taught by Adorers of the Blood of Christ.
Sister Rose Anthony said her parents died within a day of each other when she was 12. The children remained with other family members in Prairie du Rocher and spent summers with an uncle in O’Fallon.
When she joined the congregation, she took the name Rose in honor of her mother.
“I wanted my mother’s name. My mother was the person who made it possible for me to always try to be a good girl,” said Sister Rose Anthony. “Mom was a very religious person. On Saturdays, she would send us all to confession and remind us of things we needed to confess. In the evenings, we had to pray the rosary. Then she would tell us about a saint or read us something.”
Sister Rose Anthony said her mother would tell them to pray and tell God what they wanted.
“But she said I should always add, ‘But God, if that’s what you want.’ Doing God’s will. That impressed me as a child,” she said.
Sister Rose Anthony said she remembers being interested in becoming a teacher from a young age.
“My father’s oldest sister was a teacher, a trained teacher, who lived with my grandparents and helped take care of them,” she said. “She had a lot of books and I loved to read. I thought, ‘I want to be a teacher, and I’ll have a lot of books and I can just read and read and read.’ Then as I got a little older, I realized I could be a sister and a teacher.”
She began her postulancy with the Adorers of the Blood of Christ in Ruma when she was in the eleventh grade.
“I kept trying to delay my decision to go to Ruma and become a nun there,” she recalls.
Sister Rose Anthony’s sister, one year younger, decided to attend high school in Ruma, and Sister Rose Anthony was accepted there as well. Her sister stayed after high school and now lives near Washington, DC, with three children.
“Their job was to take me there (to join the Adorers),” Sister Rose Anthony said.
“Jesus was always there to help anyone who needed something,” she said. “That’s how I saw my life. In various ministries, I was always there for others and I really liked that. ‘Service to others.’ Saint Maria de Mattias, our founder, always talked about being there for our neighbors.”
Sister Rose Anthony was an elementary school teacher and principal at St. Jerome in St. Louis, Holy Family in Cahokia and St. Patrick in Ruma, and a high school teacher at Mater Dei in Breese.
She moved into parish work as director of religious education and pastoral assistant at Sacred Heart Parish in Sedalia, Missouri, St. Mary in Centralia, Immaculate Conception in Columbia and St. Bruno in Pinckneyville.
She spent time conducting research in southern Illinois to identify areas of greatest need and served as ombudsman and financial manager for seniors. She spent a year in Tanzania teaching English to young women entering the ASC community and served as a provincial councilor.
Sister Rose Anthony said she is in frequent contact with former students. One day while visiting patients at St. Elizabeth Hospital in Belleville, she met a former Holy Family eighth-grader. Her name tag said only Rose, but the patient asked, “Sister Rose, Sister Rose Anthony?”
“Living in southern Illinois, it’s like a small town, and people are there for each other,” Sister Rose Anthony said. “When you think about it, it’s a gift. I always feel like I don’t deserve all this, but God has gifted me, so it’s my duty to serve my dear neighbor in whatever way I can.”
Sister Rose Anthony currently lives in the Benedictine community at the Shrine of Our Lady of the Snows in Belleville, where she helps distribute the sisters’ monthly budgets. She also enjoys prayer, reading, working, doing puzzles, and writing.
“If I ever write a book, I’ll call it ‘Memoirs of a Ramblin’ Rose,'” she said.
A former student of Sister Rose Anthony at Holy Family in Cahokia Heights wrote an essay in college about her favorite nun from Catholic elementary school and shared it with Sister Rose Anthony. It contained insightful descriptions and many memories. The essay ended with the words, “When I think back to my time in fourth grade with Sister Rose Anthony, I smile and wonder whose life she is touching now.”
