In Loving Memory...
Sister Ellen Dolores Lynch, CSC
Birth: December 1, 1920
Profession: August 15, 1952
Death: August 17, 2002
On Ellen’s jubilee card she chose Micah 6:8 “This is what I ask of
you: to act justly, to love tenderly, and to walk humbly with your God.”
In the vocation publication, Journeys, Ellen shares the story of
her call to social justice, “…God has led me here, where I am spending
my energies working for peace, in myself and the world….”
Ellen was three when her mother died. She and her brother, George,
spent their summers and holidays on her father’s farm in West Virginia,
and the school year with her aunt in Washington, D.C., where she attended
St. Dominic’s Elementary School and Notre Dame Academy. She received her
bachelor’s degree in chemistry from Dunbarton College. The next seven
years Ellen worked as a chemist for the United States government. In 1950
she entered the Congregation, and made her first vows in 1952. She
completed a Ph.D. in chemistry at the University of Notre Dame in 1957 and
taught chemistry at Dunbarton until it closed in 1973. She also served in
administrative positions at Saint Mary’s College, and taught at the
Academy of the Holy Cross in Kensington, Maryland.
In 1980 Ellen attended a summer program at Saint Mary’s “For the
Evangelized and Evangelizing Community.” This program helped Ellen come
to a new awareness that all religious are called to work for social
justice in the world. Prayer, study and deep reflection led her to focus
all of her energies on the work of peace. She spent the next seven years
at the Coalition for a New Foreign and Military Policy in Washington, D.C.
In 1988 Ellen joined the community at the Quixote Center to work on the
Communities of Peace and Friendship and the Quest for Peace program. She
had a special passion for political efforts to alleviate the poverty in
Central America, especially Nicaragua. She worked at the Quixote Center
until the year 2000 when she formally retired. However, she continued to
volunteer there until her death.
During these same years, Ellen served as a leader within the
Congregation in our work for justice and peace. We were most blessed in
the East where she chaired our justice committee back in the 1980s and
constantly called us to respond to the work of peace. She helped us focus,
provided education on key topics, and with Rose Marie’s assistance,
provided us with letter drafts, signatures, phone numbers, and information
regarding prayer services and demonstrations. She and others called the
Congregation to form an international justice committee to expand our
actions and awareness of the impact of our countries’ actions on the
world. Up until the day she died, she continued to provide information,
focus and encouragement to the Congregation Justice Committee and the Holy
Cross International Justice Office. At the same time, Ellen was central to
our planning within Area IV, serving on our Resource Team and assisting in
ways too numerous to mention. Constantly she gave vision, clarity,
sensitivity and practicality to our planning of events and assemblies.
Active within both the Congregation and the peace and justice movement
in the Washington area, Ellen was specially valued by the youthful
lobbyist who she mentored and tirelessly encouraged to stay “in it”
for the long haul. What a deep impact she made on so many of
us.
What energized Ellen for social justice work? How did she keep going so
steadily and persistently? How did she remain so centered, realistic and
hopeful? The answer comes from her own words in Journeys. Her
energy came from a place of peace within her – “…a peace which only
God can give and which is born, not out of fear, but of hope.” It came
from a strong conviction of hope that things can change, and that it takes
each one of us to make it happen.
We have heard it said these past few days that Ellen had the heart of a
teddy bear and the steadiness and determination of a rock. She “nagged”
us to sign petitions and to be aware of what was going on politically in
our world and in our city, because she had faith in a God who promised a
hundred fold for all God’s people. Ellen touched our lives and the lives
of people of all walks of life, far beyond what we will ever know. Ellen
truly lived out her life in the direction laid out in Micah, “to act
justly, to love tenderly, and to walk humbly with your God.”
God called Ellen very suddenly on August 17. She had just participated
in her golden jubilee celebration at Saint Mary’s and returned home on
August 14 from a trip to the awesome beauty of the Canadian Rockies.
Although our loss is great, we pause with gratitude in our hearts for the
gift of Sister Ellen Dolores. We know that she will continue to be with
us, in passionate service to God’s people.
Written by Sister M. Geraldine, CSC
Read more about Sister Ellen Dolores’ life in her Journey,
“A Call to
Social Justice.”
Memorial contributions
may be made to the Sisters of the Holy Cross Ministry With the Poor Fund,
Saint Mary’s, Notre Dame, Indiana 46556.
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