By Joan Cary. Chicago Tribune
Aurora woman brings women together through faith
Ann Winkle witnessed a miracle when she was just 5, a kindergartner in Cincinnati. Now more than 40 years later, she tells the story to women as if it happened yesterday. That’s how much it has affected the Aurora woman who founded Mary’s WAY (Women Answering Yes), a ministry to bring women together in faith and closer to the blessed mother Mary. Ann was the sixth of Rosie and Jim Condit’s 10 children. The oldest was just 13 when Rosie Condit suffered a brain aneurysm. Doctors said there was no hope for the 35-year-old mother, and to make matters worse, she was six weeks pregnant with her 11th child. Word spread quickly through Mercy Hospital in Cincinnati, and throughout the building folks dropped to their knees to say the rosary for this young mother and her large Catholic family, Winkle recalls. Months passed. Neighbors, relatives, nuns and priests came to the house to help raise the children. Rosie Condit carried the baby to term, and doctors delivered the couple’s 11th healthy child by cesarean section. “It took years for my mom to recover,” Winkle says. “She raised her children from the couch. But she did recover, and I believe it was through her faith in the Blessed Mother and the healing power of prayer.” Now Winkle takes a photo from the mantel in her Aurora home and shows her parents surrounded by their 11 grown children and 60 grandchildren. She describes her parents’ unwavering faith. It has been the foundation behind her belief in the rosary and her devotion to Mary. Winkle, a former special education teacher and the mother of four, attended a women’s conference in Rockford in 2002 and felt inspired to start a women’s ministry focused on creating a greater connection to God through Mary. The idea was welcomed at her former parish, Annunciation of the Blessed Virgin Mary Catholic Church in Aurora, so she formed a small committee. Three weeks later 100 women came to the first Mary’s WAY event for dinner and to hear a guest speaker. “I took that as confirmation that the Lord wanted this to go forward,” Winkle says. “In our world where there’s a lot of despair, I felt like women needed a place to go where they could be with women of like faith and like spirit. Women are always taking care of everyone else. It is so difficult for them to take care of themselves.” Mary’s WAY is now active in seven Illinois and Indiana parishes, and two others are developing, one in Aurora and another in Pennsylvania.
Although rosary, prayer and service groups have spun off the original idea, Winkle says Mary’s WAY focuses on two dinners a year with guest speakers. At the most recent Mary’s WAY dinner sponsored by Winkle’s current parish, Holy Cross in Batavia, Winkle welcomed 210 women from high school age to retirees for dinner and to hear guest speaker the Rev. Jim Parker of East Dubuque talk about miracles. “Ann has a great love for the faith and a great deal of energy,” Parker says. “It is wonderful to pray on our own, but when we come together as a group, it strengthens all of us.” ”I don’t want to ask you to do anything but listen, take home what you will, and do what you will with it,” Parker told the women. “We bring you here to supply you with inspiration to be closer to Mary. Prayers to Our Lady do not fall upon deaf ears. Where Mary is, healing take place.” Molly Petersen of Naperville was in attendance. She started a Mary’s WAY chapter at her church, St. Thomas the Apostle in Naperville, in February. Petersen describes Winkle as “an amazing woman who is alive in her faith.”
“Ann is so special, so approachable,” Petersen says. “Through Mary’s WAY she gives women a chance to do something they don’t often do as women and mothers, to have fellowship with other women and to reignite that spark in their faith.” Other women have said that the group has reawakened their devotion to Mary. Petersen says, “It has reminded me of how important it is to get my rosary in every day even when we’re so busy and we don’t think there’s another minute in the day. The gift of the rosary keeps us centered in our daily lives.”
What women take from Mary’s WAY events is up to them, Winkle says. But she is pleased that more Catholics are reacquainting themselves with the rosary, and that women are finding the healing graces of Mary, whom Parker calls “the great intercessor on our behalf.”
“Women put themselves last, often hiding sadness and discomfort because they do not want to make anyone else uncomfortable,” says Winkle, “At Mary’s WAY, the women eat first, not last. They take time for themselves and for their faith.”
The Chicago Tribune, November 20, 2009.
