Wake Reflection - Sr. Helen Carey
St. Benedict tells us in his Rule that we are to keep death daily before our eyes. Benedict’s reason for that was so that we would know we were always under the loving gaze of God and in God’s consciousness. We may forget at times that God is present, but God never forgets us.
I believe Sister Helen always knew this. I think she also knew the Rule of Benedict before she ever entered. On her application, when asked “What are your motives for wishing to become a religious?” she replied: “Love for Christ.” The primary thing we all learn from the Rule is that the Love of Christ comes before all else. She had a good grasp of this life before even beginning it.
Sister Helen suggested this reading from Isaiah 25 that was just read. She truly loved a banquet, even in these later years. She may not have known why we were having a celebration dinner, but she enjoyed being present: from the ambiance, to the variety of hors d’oeurves, the wine, and good table conversation.
As you heard, this reading went on to say: “God will destroy death forever” – “will wipe away tears from all faces,” “This is the God for whom we looked” – “let us rejoice and be glad.” This could not have been a more perfect reading for her to have chosen. I was privileged to be with Sister Helen for about 90 minutes before God called her home. She held and squeezed my hand during that time. At one point, a tear rolled down her cheek. I wiped it away. She knew. She knew God was present with both of us, and she was ready to say good-by to this life as she reached out for the next. As the Gospel reading stated: she is now where Christ is, seeing the glory. And we rejoice with her.
Mary Ann Carey was born August 18, 1932, in Chicago, IL, the second child of John Joseph Carey and Helen Francis Marmion Carey. She had two brothers, John, and Robert, both of whom are now deceased. She had a younger sister Patricia. Her mother’s cancer reappeared in 1949, when Mary Ann was just out of high school, so Mary Ann took care of her mother until she died; then she oversaw the household, as well as her younger siblings until her father remarried. A younger sister, Colleen, was born from that marriage. We are grateful that both of her sisters are here with us today.
Mary Ann attend St. Raymond’s school in Joliet, IL through 6th grade, Immaculate Conception School in Streator for 7th-8th, and Streator Township High School, from which she graduated in 1949. After her father remarried, she chose to work rather than attend college. During this time, she was den mother for both cub scouts and brownies, she took her turn driving children to school and became the youngest ever president of the Junior Women’s Club in Streator. She worked at Caterpillar and learned to use computers to do payroll and inventory. Years later, when we obtained computers at the monastery, and instructed all the sisters how to use them at least for e-mail, Helen had quite an aversion to them!
Following a retreat at St. Mary Monastery, Nauvoo, IL in 1952, which she claimed was a powerful personal conversion experience for her, she decided to seek admission to the Sisters of St. Benedict. She was accepted as a postulant in Dec. 1952. She made final profession as a Sister in 1957. Eventually she earned a Bachelor of Arts in English from St. Scholastica College, Duluth, MN, a Masters in Philosophy from St. Louis University, St. Louis, MO, and a Doctorate in Philosophy from Fordham University, Bronx, NY.
In her academic ministry, she taught everything from 4th-8thgrades in Chicago and Wenona, IL; high school students at St. Mary’s Academy, Nauvoo, IL and Cathedral High School, St. Cloud, MN; and college level students at Immaculate Heart College, Los Angeles CA, Fordham University as an adjunct instructor, and finally as Professor of Philosophy at Centre College Danville, KY.
In a letter to the President of Centre College when she submitted her statement of resignation in 1979, she noted that she did so with mixed feelings. Her time there had been challenging and satisfying. She recognized that her “vocational commitment in and with her religious community shaped her professional life, and it was time to live and work more closely with her Benedictine Sisters.” President Thomas Spragen’s response warrants noting here: “Whatever the mixture of emotions which may have accompanied your letter of resignation, they would not …equal the strength of the compounded feelings with which I acknowledge and accept it.” He went on to say: “I am possessed of the feeling that you will be genuinely missed by more persons, and in more ways, than anyone who has left our College community in my time here. Your contributions to the enlargement of life for your colleagues… students…and a large cross section of the Danville community will be memorable for the rest of my days. “
Within community, Sister Helen was elected a Dean of the Sisters of St. Benedict from 1980-1984, serving as a team and Council member with the Prioress and sub-Prioress. She served as Parish Associate at St. Mark’s Parish in Peoria, IL from 1980-85 and was Catholic Chaplain and part-time faculty at Illinois Wesleyan University in Bloomington, IL from 1985-1997. From 1997-2009, Sister Helen worked in Pastoral Care at OSF-St. Joseph Medical Center, Bloomington.
The meaning of Service had a capital “S” in Sr. Helen’s life. Lest you think that her days were only filled with her appointed ministries, she gave herself and her time in many other ways wherever she lived. She served on the Peoria Diocesan Commission of Women; participated yearly in the “Holocaust Survivers” program
in Bloomington, IL; did voluntary service at the Catholic Worker House in Bloomington; worked for the abolition of the Death Penalty in Illinois; gave papers at programs as varied as a service remembering the 4 Catholic women killed in El Salvador, and a conference of the Society for the Advancement of American Philosophy. Here in Rock Island, she served monthly with the Sisters who took the evening meal to the poor. If something needed to be done, she was willing to step in. She gave the Baccalaureate Sermon at Centre College in 1987, long after she had left there, at the same graduation that former President Jimmy Carter gave the Graduation Address. She always kept good company.
She wrote articles and letters to editors of newspapers, particularly if she wished to express a concern about a lack of justice on some issue – whatever it might be. Her breadth of interest was expansive.
Because we are followers of God, Sr. Helen believed we are all called to pursue justice in our relationship with others, for those God has placed in our care and to speak for those without a voice. She was an activist. This is clearly seen in her actions and work on behalf of civil rights in the 1960’s and for immigrants and those on death row in later years.
Sr. Helen was teaching at Immaculate Heart College in Los Angeles, CA in March,1965. When she heard about the March from Selma to Montgomery, AL that was being planned to protest the lack of civil rights for Black people in our nation, particularly in the south, she wanted to participate. She sought and was given permission to do so by our Prioress Mother Clarisse Fallon. In the company of 300 who departed from Los Angeles, they would join the marchers on the last day. Though she had tried to avoid the reporters and TV people, she and 2 priests were interviewed before they could board the plane. She met many people on that trip – from many different Christian and other denominations, members of other activist groups, and elderly women, “in their walking shoes ready to show their support.” At the end of the march that day, at the capitol in Montgomery, she said there were about 20,000 people between her and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., but she saw and heard his speech.
She noted how important it was for her to have gone, and thanked Mother Clarisse for allowing this opportunity. She noted that for her, the experience provoked a kind of interior conversion which changed her.
Sister Helen enjoyed travel and did quite a lot of it: to Hawaii for religious study; to Greece to enrich her knowledge of the classics, to France and England to study 12th C. Angevin history. In 1979 she obtained a grant to Oxford, England not only to visit her brother who was there, but also to engage in research. She was able to participate in lectures and study their undergrad philosophy program. While there, she saw many monuments to individuals of old, who were historical monuments themselves: Christopher Wren, John Henry Newman, Roger Bacon and Duns Scotus. She called Oxford “enchanting.” She referred to these greats as “absent presences.” Though they were long dead, she felt them there in their works.
The presence which she NEVER found as ‘absent’ was the presence of God – for Christ was always with her in her heart. She now is one of “Our absent presences” – we will carry her in our hearts forever until we are together in eternity.
Sister Susan Hutchens, OSB