Board Member Spotlight: Sr. Carol Wagner, RDC

For 52 years, Sister Carol Wagner, RDC, of the Sisters of the Divine Compassion, has dedicated her life to a simple but powerful calling: living and sharing compassion.

Her vocation began in the Bronx, New York, where the Sisters of the Divine Compassion were her teachers in elementary and high school. Sr. Carol remembers them as “beautiful, gifted Sisters” whose example showed her what a life of service could look like.

Today, she continues that legacy in the same community, serving women, girls, children and families in the Bronx. As founder and director of the Preston Center of Compassion, Sr. Carol helps provide psychotherapy services for women, girls and families.

But some of the moments that have stayed with her most are those when she has watched young women discover their own capacity to serve others.

For nearly three decades, students and alumnae participated in Compassion Connection, a service program that first brought young women to Appalachia in Kentucky and later connected them with Mexican migrant children and families in upstate New York. Their days of service began and ended with prayer and reflection—an experience Sr. Carol saw inspire young women to carry compassion beyond their school and into their own lives.

Over the years, that spirit has continued through service to people experiencing homelessness, immigrants and migrants, and through a Big Sister Little Sister program mentoring girls from the surrounding community.

For Sr. Carol, this is what compassion can do: empower those who experience it to become a source of compassion and hope for someone else. That work is especially important in a community where women, girls and families continue to confront poverty, violence, racism, sexism and other barriers to opportunity and dignity.

Sr. Carol sees Sisters Rising Worldwide as an extension of the same idea—connecting women across communities and cultures so they can learn from and strengthen one another.

“Connecting with our global Sisterhood allows me to share all the gifts of women and girls from all over the globe,” she says, including communities around the world from which many first-generation immigrant families in the Bronx have come. 

When she steps away from her ministry, Sr. Carol finds renewal in the beauty of nature, walking, reflection, spiritual reading, yoga and music. She also draws strength from gathering with other women religious in compassion circles for dialogue, growth and connection.

And to those who support Sisters Rising Worldwide and Sister-led ministries around the world, Sr. Carol offers a message of gratitude:

“Thank you, thank you—for your own compassion and connecting with us.” Through that partnership, she believes supporters are helping Sisters keep alive a Gospel vision of “justice and peace, wisdom and compassion” and joining them in the work of healing the world, “one person, one family, one community at a time.”