By Anthony D’Angelico
Students and alumni know the words in the Seton Hall University seal: Hazard Zet Forward. Jennifer Nelson ’03/M.A.’08, founder of a global prayer card ministry, is the definition of the motto: Whatever the peril, ever forward.
Nelson attended Seton Hall during a tumultuous time — she is a survivor of the 2000 Boland Hall fire that killed three students and injured others. While religion was always an important part of Nelson’s life, she struggled with her faith after this trauma. But Derek Nelson, the student who would become her husband, helped, and Jennifer clung to the University’s campus ministry and the wisdom of Mother Elizabeth Ann Seton.
Nelson recalls: “Seton Hall really focused on the concept of servant leadership. Life isn’t about money, power, pleasure; at Seton Hall, I was taught how you love and serve others, how you love and serve God by treating others with dignity, respect and compassion.”
Later on, Nelson received what she understood to be a call from God, a whisper heard during a meeting: “Go to theology school.” It was an easy choice. Nelson met with Associate Dean Dianne Traflet to discuss the potential of earning a master’s degree in theology at Immaculate Conception Seminary School of Theology (ICSST).
But there were other troubles brewing. Nelson learned her odds of having children after the age of 24 were slim. Newly married and 22 years old, she believed time was running out. Traflet offered Nelson two things: inspiration and a pamphlet about Saint Gianna Beretta Molla, a pediatric physician, wife, mother and modern-day saint. Nelson began her connection with Saint Gianna upon starting graduate school. Shortly after, she gave birth to her first child, named Gianna.
The baby’s first six months were worrisome; Jennifer and Derek feared their daughter was having seizures. After being asked to pray for the Nelson family, Monsignor Gerard McCarren, now rector/dean of ICSST, began prayers on a plane from Italy. A man next to him joined in; he happened to have relics from Saint Gianna.
Monsignor McCarren brought home the relics, and when Nelson held them for the first time, these words came to her: “The Sisterhood of the Traveling Relics.” And so her ministry began.
After a few years of loaning out the relics to women who were having childbearing issues, a relic disappeared from Nelson’s small collection. She reached out to Saint Gianna’s surviving daughter, who was inspired by Nelson’s work, and was kind enough to send 15 more relics Nelson’s way.
Nelson’s ministry now stretches over seven continents through a network of 28 other women, whom Nelson calls “sisters.” They each have their own territory, sending out holy cards touched by the relics to mothers who are in need of blessings.
“It’s a gift to me from God,” Nelson says. “God is writing a love letter to the world and I just have to forward his emails.”
