The great basketball player, Michael Jordan, once said, "The key to success is failure." When he was a High School sophomore, he was elated because he had the one spot on his school's varsity basketball team reserved for a sophomore. Then he lost that spot - to a friend who was taller. That disappointment prompted him to discipline himself and train even harder to get ready for the following season. Years later, he thought about his career and said, "I have missed more than 9,000 shots in my career, I have lost almost 300 games. On 26 occasions, I have been entrusted to take the game-winning shot, and I missed. I have failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed."
She told her friend Fr. Roy Herberger that she wanted to buy a house that would be a half-way house for ex-prisoners where she could give them the steady attention and practical help they needed to find jobs and re-learn the skills they needed to rejoin society. She knew that the majority of ex-prisoners without a support system to aid them in rejoining society would fail again, commit a crime again, and end up imprisoned and defeated once more.
Years later, Fr. Roy recalled that conversation. "I said, 'Well, we really don't have any funds. I'm sure we can get some money together, but to buy a house? To start a program?' And she said, 'The Lord will provide. The Lord will take care of it.' She said, 'We'll do it. It will work.' And it did."
Eventually she founded HOPE House -- Home of Positive Experience -- in an old convent. That building was too big, so she relocated to St. Bartholomew Church's rectory on the East Side of Buffalo, where a priest she knew, Fr. Bissonette, had been murdered by two men he'd invited inside, who had told him they were hungry.
Father Bissonette's sister supported the plan to turn the rectory into a halfway house, which the Diocese of Buffalo also favored. "This, of all the houses, where you would think the parishioners or the diocese would say, 'No, no, no, you can't do that,' this is where we got the blessing," Father Herberger said. Sister Klimczak renamed the facility 'Bissonette House' and converted the room where the priest was murdered into a chapel.
"The residents of Bissonette House live in community, supporting each other as they work toward change in their lives," she wrote on her ministry's Web site, hopeofbuffalo.org. "Together they live, pray, struggle, and enjoy each other as change slowly becomes a part of their lives."
She also visited Father Bissonette's killers -- who were also convicted of murdering another priest, Monsignor David Herlihy, two weeks later -- in prison.
A memorial to the slain priest in the "Peace Park" that Sister Klimczak built behind the house includes the inscription, "Teach us how to live, God of Love, Forgive, Forgive."
Parole officers also referred parolees to Bissonette House after their release. The men stayed at the house until they found work and saved enough money for a place of their own. Sr. Karen was both an understanding mother and a tough disciplinarian with the men. They had strict times to get up in the morning, to search for jobs, to attend A.A. or N.A. meetings (held in a room in the basement) and to be back in the house at night.
But Sr. Karen also ministered to many others in the Diocese of Buffalo. She continued to visit prisoners, and, knowing many families travelled great distances to visit their family members in prison, began organizing homes for the families to stay and eat at while they were visiting their loved ones. She worked with various religious education programs in the Diocese to bring youth together with her parolees at Bissonnette House to hear their stories and share pizza and pop with them. Sister Karen also led prayer vigils at murder sites throughout Buffalo to comfort the victims' families and friends, and as a witness to the community of peace and nonviolence. Sister Karen dressed up as a clown named Bounce to entertain at churches, schools, and senior centers. She celebrated Christmas with an annual party for the children and siblings of murder victims.
In 2006, Sr. Karen was murdered on Good Friday by one of the ex-inmates she had worked so hard to redeem from being a failure. The N.Y. Times obituary, titled "The Angel to Ex-Convicts," said
"Sister Karen Klimczak devoted her life to peace. A Roman Catholic nun, Sister Klimczak, 62, led prayer vigils at murder scenes. She conducted anti-violence programs at schools. And for the last 16 years she lived in a rectory that she had turned into a halfway house for recently released convicts.
"One of them was Craig Lynch, a convicted car thief who moved in on April 5 after being paroled in January from the medium security Wyoming Correctional Facility in Attica, N.Y. ...
"'He had been smoking crack, and apparently he needed to purchase more crack,' said Detective Sgt. James Lonergan, the lead investigator on the case. 'He was stealing her cellphone, he heard Sister coming. He hid behind the door, she entered the room and he grabbed her from behind and took her to the floor.'
"The police said Mr. Lynch, 36, borrowed a car from a relative to take Sister Klimczak's body about four miles to a shed behind a vacant house near his mother's home. There, he buried the body in a shallow grave. He led the police there Monday evening, Sergeant Lonergan said."
Sr. Karen's house had an incredible success rate for rehabilitation of the men who stayed there. But - was Sr. Karen's life a failure because some of the men she tried to help reverted to a life of crime and ended up back behind bars? Was she a failure because she ended up dying at the hands of someone whom she had worked with, prayed over, cried over, trying to help him break the chains of failure and build a new life? The N.Y. Times obituary speaks of the men she helped:
"Willie White, who lived at Bissonette House for six months after his parole from a burglary sentence more than three years ago, returned regularly to help with work around the facility. He stopped by on Tuesday after hearing of the murder.
"'She helped me in every way, any way she could,' Mr. White said. "She was like a mother to us. I wondered how she could take care of all of us. But she had a big heart.'
"Mr. White, who now works as a counselor for other men who have recently left prison, credited her for his rehabilitation.
"'I was a drug user -- stupid,' he said, his eyes brimming with tears. 'She gave me the chance I needed to keep me out of there, and I haven't been back since. There are a lot of us who did make it who see the impact she had on us. Now we can't come by and thank her.'"
Ten years later, Sr. Karen's Church, St. Columba-Brigid on Hickory Street in Buffalo, held special Stations of the Cross on Good Friday in her memory (photo below) to give people the chance to reflect on Sister Karen's life and the inspiring work she did in the community.
“We remember Jesus' great love, God's great love for us, and his challenge, that Paul gives us in the scriptures, that love bears all things, love endures all things. That's what Jesus did, and that's what Karen did,” said Sister Jean Klimczak, Karen's Sister, on Friday. Prominently displayed on the door of the Church was the sign that Karen had designed, a white dove, with the words "I Leave Peaceprints" written on it, a sign posted on lawns and windows throughout the Buffalo area. Her sister says, "Karen told me, 'You leave your fingerprints on everything. We need to be people who leave imprints of peace wherever we go in our world.' That's what she was about and that is what she challenged others to do."
Today the SSJ Sister Karen Klimczak Center carries on her work of promoting non-violence:
THE SSJ SISTER KAREN KLIMCZAK CENTER FOR NONVIOLENCE STRIVES TO:
PROMOTE EDUCATION and FOSTER COMMUNITY: Offer opportunities for people to learn and practice nonviolence
PROVIDE TRAINING: Offer age-appropriate training in nonviolence for youth and adults utilizing the Alternatives to Violence Project (AVP) as a central program
SUPPLY RESOURCES: Gather the best resources available on nonviolence
BUILD RELATIONSHIPS: Work in coalition with community groups which promote nonviolence
Can we look at our lives and discover the various angels, like Sr. Karen Klimczak, whom God has sent us to give us a hand up from failure and encourage us to rise up and build a new life from the ashes of defeat? When we fail, the choice is simple: to become bitter, or to become better. The choice is ours. And even if we fail while doing good, as Sr. Karen did, we become seed whom the Lord has planted to give birth to a wonderful harvest beyond our wildest dreams. Believe it!