By Jim Davis - Florida Catholic

MIAMI SHORES | St. Catherine of Siena visited Barry University, through a talented, dedicated nun who has portrayed the medieval saint hundreds of times.

Sister Nancy Murray of the Adrian Dominican Sisters did the one-woman show at Barry for the school's 75th anniversary. Through humor, crowd participation and retelling Catherine's image-rich "Dialogue" with God, the 14th century Italian girl came alive again — and perhaps shed light from her times onto ours.

"I want to help people learn between the lines of what history says about saints," said Sister Nancy, who lives near the order's motherhouse in Adrian, Mich. "Some have conveyed plaster smiles. There's a lot more humanity in her — a precocious child who became an assertive, strong woman."

Her Nov. 11 show began at the rear of Barry University's Cor Jesu Chapel. Swathed in brown-and-white robes of a medieval habit, she ambled through the double wooden doors and bowed to fullsize cutout images of the Four Founders of Barry University — Msgr. William Barry, John G. Thompson, Mother Mary Gerald Barry and Bishop Patrick Barry — drawing laughs.

She marveled at the growth of the school from 40 students, "a swamp and a palm tree," to 9,000 students. "Dream big, because that's what they did," she said of the founders. "It is on their shoulders that we stand.

"But they're only cardboard, so don’t try it," she quickly added, drawing more laughs.

She then segued into the story of Catherine Benincasa: born in 1347, one of an amazing 25 children; a headstrong girl who loved her father but often vexed her mother.

Even as a child, Catherine showed a closeness to Jesus, once even seeing him smiling from the sky, she said. Sister Nancy told how the girl pleaded for her own room to pray, and in return learned to wait humbly on her family.

Sister Nancy often used her 80 listeners as extras, and they cheerfully complied. When she showed how Catherine cared for her siblings, she led five children in a circle dance. And when she illustrated the blessings Catherine gave, one man actually bowed and closed his eyes as she laid her hand on his head.

But it was the girl's time alone that formed the pivot for the performance, as Sister Nancy interwove the tender, poetic quotes for which Catherine is best known. They included:

"By your cross, you made a bridge from heaven to humanity, so that humanity could go to heaven."

"You care how much we suffer, because you suffered first."

"You never give us a thorn in our life that you don’t bring a rose."

"Walk on two feet: love of God and love of your neighbor."

She then addressed the audience: "Think of someone that God sent to help you through a difficult time." (Pause) "Thank God for that person. Be that person to someone else."

As Sister Nancy continued her monologue, her body language changed — from the quick, impulsive movements of a child to the more flowing, graceful gestures of an adult. She told of Catherine joining a benevolent society usually reserved for widows. And of Catherine writing to pastors and royalty, urging them to use their powers to serve people and help the poor. And of the budding saint even persuading Pope Gregory XI to return to Rome from Avignon, France, to rid the holy city of corruption.

Sister Nancy then narrated Catherine's last days after two strokes, and her death at the age of 33. She urged her listeners to do what good they can with those around them.

"Join a group of people who can encourage you to move out, to be your best self," she said. "I know that in your conversations with God, he will show you the way."

The program ended with deafening applause.

"It was a profound experience," enthused Adrian Dominican Sister Evelyn Piche, former head of Barry's school of education. "It helped us to see how God works in every generation. When you go outside yourself, you can make a better world."

Sister Nancy has done the show in various forms about 750 times over 15 years, she said by phone before her Barry appearance. She has performed in Peru and Trinidad, Germany and Indonesia.

She did the show at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival and World Youth Day in Madrid. And for an international symposium on the saint at the Angelicum in Rome. And a Knights of Columbus chapter in Georgia has invited her to do the role next April in Rome and Siena, Italy.

The Barry performance, though, was a kind of homecoming: She graduated from its theater department in 1972, before earning a master's degree in pastoral studies at Loyola of Chicago.

Portraying St. Catherine was actually a specialty of Sister Kathleen Harkins, a former drama teacher of hers. The day after she died in 2000, Sister Nancy was asked to do a monologue on the saint at a colloquium for the Dominican Leadership Conference.

“At first I said, 'Oh, no, this is too scary!'" she recalled. But she researched and crafted her own interpretation, then got request after request to perform it. After three years, she was asked to make it her fulltime ministry.

Books weren’t the only influence; she also drew from her own upbringing in a family of nine children in Wilmette, Ill — one of whom is actor/comedian Bill Murray. Like Catherine, she was devoted to her father and argued with her mother, she said. And like Catherine's mother, her mom wanted her to marry. Instead, Sister Nancy insisted on the convent.

Neither parent thought she would stick with consecrated life, she said with amusement. "Mom gave me 24 hours — Dad gave me two weeks."

Besides her St. Catherine shows, Sister Nancy has served as vocations director for the Adrian Dominicans, as well as an inner-city youth minister in Chicago. She also taught nine years at Loyola.

But the performing arts have remained her first love. At one time or another, she has done liturgical dance and performed in "Fiddler on the Roof" and "The Diary of Anne Frank." She has also portrayed Sister Dorothy Stang, who was killed in 2005 for her work with campesinos in Brazil.

Of course, St. Catherine of Siena remains Sister Nancy's greatest hit.

"I believe artists are the ones who can restore beauty and show the essence of people," she said. "Relating the 14th century to the 21st century makes her a woman for today."