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In Memoriam
Sister Ellen Dolores Lynch (Maria Teresa Lynch)
August 17, 2002
Memento by Sister Geraldine Blume, CSC
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 most recent
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’s mother died when
she was three years old. 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, Notre Dame Academy and received her bachelors degree in
chemistry from Dunbarton College of Holy Cross in 1943.
The next seven years Ellen worked as a chemist for the U. S.
Government. In 1950 she
entered the Congregation of the Sisters of the Holy Cross, 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, DC. 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 1980’s and constantly called and supported 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.
With other members of the East she 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 has been central to our planning within
Area IV, serving on our Resource Team and assisting in ways to 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.
Representatives join us now from her family and friends, her Holy
Cross community, her Dunbarton family, and co-laborers and friends in the
social justice community. 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 14th 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.
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