By Anthony D’Angelico<\/p>\n
Students and alumni know the words in the Seton Hall University seal: Hazard Zet Forward. Jennifer Nelson \u201903\/M.A.\u201908, founder of a global prayer card ministry, is the definition of the motto: Whatever the peril, ever forward.<\/p>\n
Nelson attended Seton Hall during a tumultuous time \u2014 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\u2019s 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\u2019s campus ministry and the wisdom of Mother Elizabeth Ann Seton.<\/p>\n
Nelson recalls: \u201cSeton Hall really focused on the concept of servant leadership. Life isn\u2019t 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.\u201d<\/p>\n
Later on, Nelson received what she understood to be a call from God, a whisper heard during a meeting: \u201cGo to theology school.\u201d It was an easy choice. Nelson met with Associate Dean Dianne Traflet to discuss the potential of earning a master\u2019s degree in theology at Immaculate Conception Seminary School of Theology (ICSST).<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
The baby\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n
Monsignor McCarren brought home the relics, and when Nelson held them for the first time, these words came to her: \u201cThe Sisterhood of the Traveling Relics.\u201d And so her ministry began.
\nAfter a few years of loaning out the relics to women who were having childbearing issues, a relic disappeared from Nelson\u2019s small collection. She reached out to Saint Gianna\u2019s surviving daughter, who was inspired by Nelson\u2019s work, and was kind enough to send 15 more relics Nelson\u2019s way.<\/p>\n
Nelson\u2019s ministry now stretches over seven continents through a network of 28 other women, whom Nelson calls \u201csisters.\u201d They each have their own territory, sending out holy cards touched by the relics to mothers who are in need of blessings.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a gift to me from God,\u201d Nelson says. \u201cGod is writing a love letter to the world and I just have to forward his emails.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
By Anthony D’Angelico Students and alumni know the words in the Seton Hall University seal: Hazard Zet Forward. Jennifer Nelson \u201903\/M.A.\u201908, 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 \u2014 she is a survivor of the 2000…<\/p>\n