In Loving Memory...

Sister M. Agnes Eileen, CSC
(Eileen J. Walshe)
Birth: March 5, 1914
Profession: February 2, 1938
Death: January 7, 2007

We have just celebrated the great feast of Epiphany—the feast of Light, feast of God’s revelation.

On the feast of Epiphany, January 6, 1936, Sister Agnes Eileen was clothed with the garments significant of her incorporation in the Congregation of the Sisters of the Holy Cross—veil, cape, dolor beads. This was the external image, but within her a spiritual vesting was also taking place, a garment significant of the covenant she made with her God that day. She was clothed with an interior mantle woven by God to seal a new covenant of fidelity with her covenant—commitment forever—and God said:

I will prove my holiness through you;
I will sprinkle clean water upon you;
I will give you a new heart and place
a new Spirit within you.
You shall be (mine) and I will
be your God.
~Ezekiel 36:23

…and she wore this interior mantle throughout her life.

Eilee, as we affectionately called her, was the ninth of 10 children born to Lillian and Patrick Walshe. She grew up in a gregarious and devoted family. Her brother, Bart, informed her that he would also join the Sisters of the Holy Cross when they went co-ed! Humor was one of her delightful gifts. Eilee wanted to be a nurse but willingly accepted a ministry of teaching art most of her life, although she ‘served her time’ with first graders at one point. Two sisters preceded her in Holy Cross—Sister Eleanor Francis and Sister Lillian Therese.

Comments of the sisters who have lived with her in recent years describe her as a delightful, gracious woman, a gifted artist, a beloved teacher who loved all things beautiful.

Because of the covenant she lived so quietly, that covenant was rarely verbalized by her. But, one does not easily hide a covenant mantle and others sensed the interior fidelity that lived the words of Ephesians 2:3-10.

We are God’s work of art, created in Christ Jesus to
live the good life as from the beginning he had
meant us to live it.
Eilee was truly God’s faithful work of art—
faithful and changed by surrender to
and joy in being transformed into God’s image,
truly, she was God’s work of art.

Written by Sister Olivia Marie Hutcheson, CSC

Memorial contributions may be made to the Sisters of the Holy Cross Ministry With the Poor Fund, Saint Mary’s, Notre Dame, Indiana 46556.