The Light of Christ

Catholic Extension’s 2024 Lumen Christi Award being given to Sr. Mary Lisa Renfer for her work with the St. Mary’s Legacy Clinic

By Bill Brewer

Catholic Extension Society has named Sister Mary Lisa Renfer, RSM, as the 2024 recipient of the Lumen Christi Award, the highest honor given by the respected lay organization whose non-profit work supports and strengthens mission dioceses across the United States.

Sister Mary Lisa is being recognized for her work with the St. Mary’s Legacy Clinic, which provides health care to low-income, uninsured residents across East Tennessee. The Diocese of Knoxville health-care ministry logs more than 1,500 patient visits annually through its 40-foot mobile medical van. Patients served by the clinic do not have to be of the Catholic faith, and the vast majority are not.

Sister Mary Lisa, a physician whose order is the Religious Sisters of Mercy of Alma, Mich., serves as medical director for the St. Mary’s Legacy Clinic.

In describing Sister Mary Lisa, Catholic Extension Society said:

“Sister Mary Lisa Renfer, a Religious Sister of Mercy, earned her Doctor of Osteopathic Medicine degree from Michigan State University. This unique fusion of a medical degree and a religious vocation prepared Sr. Mary Lisa to become the medical director of St. Mary’s Legacy Clinic (SMLC), a mobile clinic that serves the poor in eastern Tennessee.

“The clinic covers a lot of ground. Last year it travelled over 11,000 miles. SMLC has 10 practice sites and will see over 1,500 patients this year with the help of a network of 100 health-care professionals who lend their medical expertise to the mission. Seventy-two percent of patients live in extreme poverty and lack insurance and basic health care. Sr. Mary Lisa attends to the spiritual needs of her patients alongside their physical ailments. She never separates the healing of the body from the ministry to the soul.”

The mobile clinic, staffed by volunteers, visits sites each week in Cumberland, Grainger, McMinn, Meigs, Scott, Sevier, and Knox counties, where patients are treated by a team of doctors, nurses, and support staff on a regular basis. The clinic van travels, on average, more than 200 miles per week.

Sister Mary Lisa is thankful to Catholic Extension Society for its “kind and generous support of our ministry at St. Mary’s Legacy Clinic and for its support of the Church on mission.”

“You are a blessing to us, and it is an honor for our clinic to receive this reward! I feel abundantly blessed to be a part of an amazing and generous team of staff and volunteers that make this ministry possible, and I know that this reward is a recognition of the kindness and generosity that each of them bring to this ministry,” she said.

Sister Mary Lisa feels blessed to be a part of “this beautiful healing ministry” in holy obedience as a Religious Sister of Mercy.

“Our prayer and our goal are to bear Christ’s love and mercy to each person we encounter at St. Mary’s Legacy Clinic. It is a beautiful gift to receive this reward, recognizing the ‘light of Christ’ that shines through our staff and volunteers, and also from our patients. The support we will receive from Catholic Extension because of this award will also help us to continue this healing ministry to the poor and the sick, who Christ loves so dearly,” she said.

Bishop Mark Beckman is grateful to Catholic Extension Society for recognizing the ministry that helps so many in need.

“The words Lumen Christi mean the light of Christ. It is so clear to me that the light of Christ shines through Sister Mary Lisa beautifully, and especially in the ministry she is doing, the healing ministry of St. Mary’s Legacy Clinic,” Bishop Beckman said. “I’m so delighted that she has been recognized and that this honor is going to help to spread that healing love of God, the light of Christ in the world, even more profoundly.”

“And great gratitude to the Catholic Extension Society for its generosity in supporting so many good aspects of God’s light shining in the world, especially right here in the Diocese of Knoxville,” the bishop noted.

Lumen Christi Award finalists are selected for their outstanding work that represents the Catholic Church and shows the face and hands of Jesus. The award is accompanied by a monetary grant that supports the recipient.

Award finalists receive $10,000 to support and enhance their ministry. From among these finalists, the Lumen Christi Award recipient is selected and given a $25,000 grant, along with an additional $25,000 grant for the nominating diocese. Bishop Beckman has said the full $50,000 will go to St. Mary’s Legacy Clinic.

First given in 1978, the Lumen Christi Award is presented to individuals and groups that “radiate and reveal the light of Christ present in the communities where they serve,” according to Catholic Extension Society.

Father Jack Wall, president of Catholic Extension Society, said that finalists for the award bring about confidence, joy, and faith within the communities they serve. The society selected seven finalists for the 2024 Lumen Christi Award. This year, 37 dioceses served by Catholic Extension Society submitted nominations for the award.

“This year’s Lumen Christi Award finalists have each found a way to play their part in making a difference in the lives of others,” Father Wall said. “They are helping to build up a better nation, where people care for one another, and where the pain of others does not fall on deaf ears. They feel called to be a blessing in places where there is no shortage of trouble and tribulation.”

Martin Vargas, executive director of the St. Mary’s Legacy Clinic, called the award a great honor for Sister Mary Lisa and her vocation that truly reflects the light of Christ. He expressed his sincere thanks to Catholic Extension Society for the award.

“It also is the recognition of the commitment to extending the healing ministry of Jesus Christ in East Tennessee by the Religious Sisters of Mercy, the Diocese of Knoxville, the team at St. Mary’s Legacy Clinic, including its staff and over 100 volunteers, and the many supporters funding the ministry,” Mr. Vargas said. “It also honors how we provide care, which is person to person, one patient at a time. It is the model of Christ that He set forth during His earthly ministry.”

Mr. Vargas continued, “So grateful are we for this honor and excited for the life work that it reflects of Sister Mary Lisa.”

St. Mary’s Legacy Clinic was established in 2013 and began seeing patients in January 2014. The clinic gets its name from St. Mary’s Hospital in Knoxville, which was founded in 1930 under the leadership of the Sisters of Mercy.

Paul Simoneau, Diocese of Knoxville vice chancellor and director of the Office of Justice and Peace, advocates for diocesan ministries with Catholic Extension Society. Sister Mary Lisa and the St. Mary’s Legacy Clinic is the first Lumen Christi Award recipient he and the diocese have nominated.

“When I think about the incredible works of mercy being accomplished through the St. Mary’s Legacy Clinic, I can’t help but marvel how God has blessed the medical mission in East Tennessee through the consecrated lives of the Religious Sisters of Mercy,” Mr. Simoneau said. “It began in 1930 when St. Mary’s Hospital opened in Knoxville under the leadership of the Sisters of Mercy, after a group of Knoxville doctors petitioned the Diocese of Nashville (which covered the state at the time) to open a Catholic hospital.

“In 2011, as a result of the sale of St. Mary’s Hospital, and with money negotiated from that sale, the Diocese of Knoxville established the St. Mary’s Legacy Foundation to provide support for the continuation of the healing ministry of the Mercy sisters in East Tennessee with the purchase of the St. Mary’s Legacy Clinic vehicle as well as its initial operating funds. And since its first operational year in 2014, the Catholic Extension Society, in addition to assisting the mobile clinic with a salary subsidy grant for a nurse manager, has recognized two Sisters of Mercy, both who have served as the clinic’s medical director, as finalists for the Lumen Christi Award—Sister Mariana Koonce, RMS, MD, and Sister Mary Lisa Renfer.”

Sister Mariana Koonce was the clinic’s founding director and also served as its first physician.

The clinic’s first site was Crab Orchard in Cumberland County in 2014. That year also saw the clinic travel regularly to Washburn in Grainger County, Athens in McMinn County, and Decatur in Meigs County. Then in 2015, the clinic began visiting Rutledge in Grainger County. The addition of Gatlinburg was in 2017, and then in 2022 Helenwood in Scott County and Knox County were added. Crossville in Cumberland County joined the roster, and a second Sevier County location, Pigeon Forge, is now being added.

The clinic partners with the communities it serves, and in several locations the clinic is hosted by Diocese of Knoxville churches such as the Church of Divine Mercy in Knoxville, St. Mary in Athens, St. Jude in Helenwood, St. John Paul II Catholic Mission in Rutledge, St. Mary in Gatlinburg, St. Alphonsus in Crossville, and Holy Cross in Pigeon Forge.

The clinic, often referred to as a “family doctor’s office on wheels,” provides care for both urgent health needs such as acute illnesses and minor injuries and chronic conditions like high blood pressure and diabetes. It offers telehealth visits between in-person appointments and connects patients to additional services through clinic partners.

“Most importantly, St. Mary’s Legacy Clinic treats each person with dignity and respect and aims to provide a compassionate environment for everyone we encounter. As a Catholic ministry, St. Mary’s Legacy Clinic follows the Ethical and Religious Directives for Catholic Health Care Services, which promote the dignity of each person,” according to the clinic.