Catching up with the ‘Woodstock Nun’
ERIK ZYGMONT AUGUST 8, 2016 FEATURE, LOCAL NEWS, NEWS, VOCATIONS

JOPPA – There’s a time and place for the story of how Sister Susanne Bunn of the Mission Helpers of the Sacred Heart became a cultural icon. ... “I use it in conversation when I don’t know the person, and I’m not sure what to say,” she said.

Such was the case when the Catholic Review telephoned Prince of Peace parish in Edgewood some months back, looking for the pastor. Instead of treating us to Lionel Richie’s “Hello” or similar fare, Sister Susanne, who runs religious education programs there and at Holy Spirit in Joppa, told a story – how she became the “Woodstock Nun” in 1969.

In the acclaimed documentary “Woodstock,” released a year later, she can be seen with two fellow Mission Helpers – Sister Rita Lynch and another young woman who would leave religious life. The nuns appear amid a montage of hippies arriving at the festival, set to Canned Heat’s “Going Up the Country.” ... Clad in simple tan habits and black veils, the sisters smile shyly as they walk off camera, their modestly upright postures contrasting with the hippies’ cool slouches.

The whole clip lasts about six seconds. As it ends, one of the nuns – young, slender, gentle smile, dark hair – pauses. As the other two depart the scene, she directly faces the camera and raises two fingers on her left hand in the universal sign for peace.

The filmmaker deemed the moment significant enough to freeze the frame briefly before moving on to the next snippet. Today, it’s the image that pops into most everyone’s head when “the nun flashing the peace sign at Woodstock” is mentioned. ... “That was just how I greeted people, speaking their language,” Sister Susanne explained. “That’s ‘Hello there.’”
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