by One of Her Sisters in Christ
As published in The Reign of Mary No. 137
Sister Mary Francisca, CMRI, died suddenly in Florida on January 28, 2010. She was only 61 years old. Besides her religious family, the priests, Brothers and Sisters of the Congregation, and the faculty and students of St. Michael’s Academy, her funeral was attended by a vast number of people from Spokane and Idaho, who knew her as one of the most giving and selfless individuals they had ever met. Sister’s duties as school nurse, teacher and counsellor, convent infirmarian, coordinator for the Sisters’ singing apostolate put her in contact with a great number and variety of people; her works of mercy and charity throughout the city were too vast even to count.
February 4, 2010. School was cancelled at Mount St. Michael. The usual round of daily duties for the Sisters was suspended. A constant line of visitors had begun, early that morning, to stream in and out of the large room adjoining the chapel where Sister Mary Francisca lay in a simple casket. Her small hands clutched a rosary of white pearls — her “profession rosary” cherished and saved for this day. On her head was the crown of thorns she received at her final profession, now adorned with white blossoms in token of her heavenly nuptials. A picture of Our Lady of Fatima lay close beside her. The visitors lingered for a moment, offering a prayer, saying good-bye. Some chose just to sit quietly beside her, lost in their own thoughts.
On the day of a funeral, all our usual lives stop for awhile and the realities many of us choose to forget for most of our waking lives come into focus at the sight of death. The more sudden a death, the more unexpected, the sharper the focus. One wonders, fearfully, what must it have been like, to have seen, without any warning at all, the face of God, to be brought to judgment and to know that one’ s Eternity has begun? To have seen in all her glory and splendor the Immaculata herself, our Blessed Mother!
Out of focus? Perhaps for most of us, yes, but for her? There never seemed to be time when Sister Mary Francisca was not in focus. Mundane preoccupations, trifling matters that the rest of us put at the top of our priority list, like what we eat, what we look like, what our duties happen to be — even the small or large tragedies in our lives — were inconsequential to her. At meals, she seemed hardly aware of what was on her plate, if she happened to be eating at all. She was not the most meticulously dressed, something usually was too big, her veil might be askew, her hair showing a bit, her hands dry, red and chapped, her shoes unpolished — indicating to even the most casual onlooker that her time wasn’ t wasted on herself even in these little things. Human respect? Not in her vocabulary. What her duties were didn’ t matter. No ambition lingered in her, only God’ s Will. That, and an incredible devotion for Our Lady, which worked itself out in complete self-forgetfulness and her “otherward” orientation.
In choosing many years ago, as her patron in the religious life, little Francisco Marto, the seer at Fatima, her own life grew wonderfully parallel to that of the little boy whose sole ambition in life was to console the “Hidden Jesus.” One word sums up her interior life: intensity. Her cell resembled a sanctuary; it was very clear that although she was intensely interested in the here-and-now lives of all those in her care, that her professionalism as a nurse and counselor could not be gainsaid, her own personal focus never wavered from the supernatural. Added to all her duties the last years of her life was the care of her own mother, and with the permission of her superiors, she spent long hours, sometimes days, away from the convent in this work of filial piety and charity.
It seems incredible in a day and age like ours that one little nun could have solicited so much charity from the world around her. For the Sisters, she “begged” dental care for all their needs, even complete operations and hospitalization! All sorts of nursing equipment and health aids, procured from her great number of friends and benefactors, were transformed into little “care packages” for her friends, complete with a small picture of Our Lady. She gave away whatever she had; she gave herself totally to everyone.
It was while calling friends to inform them of Sister’ s death that the nuns learned of the untold and unknown depths of her charity. One example was that of a florist from whom Sister procured beautiful bouquets of roses for special feasts of “Blessed Mother,” as she lovingly referred to her. Two Sisters had gone to her shop to pick up the flowers with which to adorn her crown of thorns for her burial. The florist, after shedding tears together with them, spoke of how Sister Mary Francisca had come to see her nearly every week during a time she was suffering a difficult trial. And this was just one of many such stories…
Her Sisters will be indebted to her forever for a legacy of giving, giving without counting the cost. When Reverend Mother had gathered her community together and, through her tears, told them that God had taken Sister Mary Francisca so suddenly from their midst, shock gave way to grief and grief to prayer and prayer to gratitude. Why are we here, after all? Is it not for this, what Sister was always talking about, what she was living for — Heaven?
Praying the Rosary, they walked to the cemetery — her family, her Sisters, her friends. They sang her favorite hymn to Our Lady of Fatima, placed roses on her coffin and then they left, back to their own focus on life, clearer now, less solicitous for the things of this world, more for God. To one of her dearest friends she never tired of repeating the words of little Francisco before his death: “I will never forget you, no, never.” Sister Mary Francisca, we will never forget you!