Following a brief illness, Sister Maura Ryan passed away peacefully at the Deutschese Altenheim Centre for Extended Care in West Roxbury, Ma., on January 8, 2005.

Maura’s long life from her birth in Arklow, County Wicklow, Ireland to her death in the Boston suburb of West Roxbury over 80 years later spanned a time of unprecedented change in the world, and Maura lived every moment of that life to the full.

As a young woman, she heard Sister Mary Patrick, the co-foundress of the the Columban Sisters, speak of the mission to China.  Her heart was so touched by what she heard that she decided that she, too, wanted to give her life in the service of God’s Reign. While still in her late teens, she joined the Columban Sisters and a few years later she was on her way to China.  However, she had barely landed there when momentous political changed forced all the missionaries to leave the country and with them Maura. She now set out to cross the Pacific and finally arrived in Los Angeles, California.  There another phase of her life unfolded.

 She began teaching in the newly founded Blessed Sacrament School in a place called Westminster, a second home to the Mexican people who had come north to work.  It was the beginning of her life-long love and appreciation for the Hispanic people and their culture.  After a number of years, life called Maura to move on again.  She spent some years in Boston helping to raise funds for the missionary efforts of the Columban Sisters. Then she was off again - this time to Peru as part of the first group of Columban Sisters to go there.  She opened a school in a very poor area and was the first directress. (This past year, greatly expanded, the school celebrated its 40th. Anniversary and awarded Maura a special memorial plaque.)

Maura’s next port of call was Los Angeles, where at a time when many would be thinking of retirement, she took on the role of school principal at Our Lady of Guadalupe School.  As an educator, she took very seriously her task of helping to provide the highest quality education possible and helping other teachers and principals to do likewise.  But never one to sit back on what she had already accomplished, Maura was always looking ahead.  Computers were beginning to come into use and Maura saw their potential as an educational tool.  She helped to develop a program called “Writing to Read” and gave workshops on it all over the Diocese of Los Angeles. 

 Then it was time for another change and Maura, with her customary enthusiasm, took on the role of liturgical coordinator of the parish.  Her great artistic skills found a natural outlet in that work and she never tired of using her creativity to enhance the worship of God.  It was as if her last years of active ministry allowed her to give concrete expression to the motto she had chosen at her Final Profession ceremony more than 60 year previously: “Glory to God in the highest!”

 Finally, thinking about retirement, Maura moved to Boston.  There, still active and in good health, she had time to enjoy the many things that her long years of very active service had not allowed.

 Maura was a person of deep wisdom born of her total commitment to Christ and to his mission.  Life for her was an adventure to be lived and to the full.  She took each day and each event as it came, with faith and trust in the goodness of God.  She always looked to the future with hope and enthusiasm and was never a person to bemoan the passing of the past.  May she now know life to the full with the God whom she loved and served for so many years.

Maura’s funeral Mass took place at St, John Chrysostom Church, West Roxbury and afterwards she was buried in the local cemetery.     May she rest in peace!  

To contact the Columban Sisters,
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