In Loving Memory...

Sister M. Amata, CSC
(Teresa Rose Miller)
Birth: August 8, 1918
Profession: August 15, 1948
Death: February 3, 2007

This may seem a strange way to begin our special time of remembrance of the joyous life of Sister Amata, Teresa Rose Miller, but perhaps it will give us new images of this valiant person. A company that had a significant influence on Teresa’s life, the Firestone Tire and Rubber Company, used a variety of advertising methods. Among them was the following 1960s jingle:

“Wherever wheels are rolling, no matter what the load,
the name that’s known is Firestone, where the rubber meets the road.”

Teresa was born in a small community, Mogadore, near Akron, Ohio, where her parents, Catherine Barta and Ignatius Miller, were living; they had come to the United States from Hungary. Ignatius was employed in a rubber manufacturing company. Anyone familiar with the Akron area readily recalls the strong impact that the rubber and tire industries have had upon that part of our country. Teresa was the second of the five Miller children; Anthony, her oldest brother, died at the age of 5 months. The family’s joy was heightened, however, by the arrival of three more children: Catherine, Joseph and John. Catherine and John survive, and are here today in spirit; the severe weather precluded their travel from South Gate, California.

Teresa attended St. Joseph’s Grade School in Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio, where the Sisters of Charity of St. Augustine taught her. The year following her graduation from public high school, the Miller family moved to Southern California. After attending Spencer Business College, Teresa found work in the office of the Firestone Tire and Rubber Company in Los Angeles. Her involvement in the parish sodality and young people’s club resulted in lifelong friendships. However, it was through Father Edwin Connolly, the assistant pastor at St. Helen’s Parish, that Teresa met the Sisters of the Holy Cross. When Teresa spoke of her interest in a religious vocation, he suggested that she visit Sister Giovanni, who happened to be visiting at Saint Agnes Convent. After a satisfying visit there, Teresa asked for further information and was referred to Saint Paul’s Convent, where she met Sister Leo Anthony. As a result of these meetings, Teresa applied for entrance to the congregation. At that time there were six young women in the Los Angeles area planning to enter Saint Mary’s novitiate in February 1946. The sisters were delighted to have Teresa join the group.

The following August a very special “Lady Elect” received the holy habit and the name “Sister Amata,” which is Latin for “loved one.” As a postulant, Sister Amata assisted Sister David in the registrar’s office at Saint Mary’s College and, as a second-year novice, she enrolled in classes there. Immediately after first vows in 1948, Sister Amata continued her typical, faith-filled response to whatever the assignment was. The Firestone jingle had not been coined nor popularized in those beginning days of Sister Amata’s religious commitment to the church and our family of Holy Cross, but it was evident that “wherever the wheels” of obedience rolled for her, she lovingly accepted “the load.” She served as secretary, X-ray technician, office manager, provincial secretary-treasurer (18 consecutive years), in secretarial service in secondary schools, as support staff in Madonna Manor, and in prayer ministry. The same meticulousness that she demonstrated in her professional life was evidenced in everything she did. Truly that meeting place “where the rubber met the road” was molded and strengthened, yet softened and made flexible by Amata’s deep faith, her confidence in our Blessed Mother, her devotion to the person of Jesus, especially by their daily sacramental encounter, and her prayerful attentiveness to the tabernacle through her television screen. Her commitment to and appreciation of Catherine and Johnny, her aunts, uncles, cousins, friends and all of us—her religious family—were unique gifts.

The name by which Amata is known, most truly is “love,” the unquenchable “fire of love” for God, for all creation, for all of us. So as we mourn her loss, we rejoice in her entrance into heaven last Saturday morning. Through the poetic words of Sister Dorothy Kebba, Amata’s dear friend and band mate, let us pray:

Morning gently opens her arms
in welcome.
Her quiet spirit receives me with care,
soothing my storm-tossed soul
with her loveliness.

Music dances in my heart.
Joy abounds –
Songs of praise fill my soul.
My God, how precious your secret ways!

You have led me tenderly, lovingly
into the misty clear
Where wounds of Violent Darkness
slowly heal
into Chalices of Love.

Written by Sister Patricia Ann Thompson, 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.