ELGIN—Upon serving 24-years of compassionate and prayerful neighborly love as a spiritual care chaplain, Sister Leticia Lapid, OSF, has retired from her ministry at Amita Health Saint Joseph Hospital in Elgin. 

 

Sister Leticia continued the legacy of grace, love, and concern for patients established by her religious community, the Franciscan Sisters of the Sacred Heart, who founded the Elgin hospital in 1902.

 

Father George Birungyi, the hospital’s spiritual care chaplain, offered a morning Mass of Thanksgiving for her on Sept. 24. A farewell reception was held later in the afternoon. 

 

Hospital leadership and staff, community friends, and members of Sister Leticia’s religious community from Frankfort, south of Chicago, bid farewell and expressed their appreciation to Sister Leticia for her kindness and care.

 

“I loved this kind of work being with people, patients, associates, and community,” said Sister Leticia. “I got to know so many and they became my family away from my religious community and my blood family. I have worked all the units here at Saint Joseph over the years. To sum up my life ministry, I have cared for people from birth to death.”

 

Sister Leticia began her work at Saint Joseph’s in 1988 as a certified nurse assistant on the telemetry unit. After a short time, she left Elgin as requested by her religious community to provide a different ministry in other parts of the country. She returned to the hospital in 1997 and began her ministry as a spiritual care chaplain.

 

“Now it is time for me to leave this scene and to discover my new ministry together with my religious community,” said Sister Leticia, who will live with members of her order at St. Francis Woods in Frankfort. 

 

The 184-bed, full-service hospital has been recognized for excellence in multiple specialties and offers the latest high-tech minimally invasive cardiac care. The Cancer Care Center brings together board-certified doctors and specialists to provide advanced cancer treatment and rehabilitation.