Sister Mary Ann Teresa of the Holy Spirit has gone from us. Sister Mary Ann Teresa, whom one of the nuns described as “…the heart of our community, the charity of Christ-made-flesh dwelling in our midst. No one ever left her without knowing they were especially loved by God through her. She was so united to God’s Love that she became a communion of love in the hearts of all those around her. Death has not changed that, but only deepened it.” How fitting that our Lord came for her on the Feast of Corpus Christi.
Born to Mary and Frank Crowder on July 28, she and the World’s Fair arrived in Saint Louis, Missouri, the same year, 1904. She grew up between two brothers, Edward and Joseph. She loved them both dearly, and they her. She developed into a real American beauty: fun-loving, bright, alert, winsome, good, pure, and loyal. After graduating from high school, she did not go to college, although she dearly wanted to. Her father had decided “that she was already smart enough.”
She worked as a secretary for a music company, and at the Jesuit University in St. Louis. She was a natural-born leader, a quiet innovator. She loved dancing, and reveled in the waltz. At the same time, she was at home with jazz. This was due to the influence of her brother Ed, who aspired to be a drummer in a jazz band. When people would ask her what she was going to do with her life, she would respond: “I am too young to make such an important decision. I want to take time to decide.”
Her mother became ill, and Marie stopped working, to take care of her and her father and brothers. She attended Mass and devotions regularly, praying to learn God’s will for her. She would tell us how, one time she asked her mother about what she thought about her becoming a religious. She replied, as many a mother has done, “Well, you better get a two-way ticket. They will never keep you.” Marie took her mother seriously.
When the Discalced Carmelite Nuns moved from their monastery on Victor Street in St. Louis, it became a Retreat House. It was here that Marie met Reverend Father W. Lynck. Father was confessor to the Carmelites, and evidently recognized one when he saw Marie. He said to her, “Why are you living in the world when the Lord wants you in the cloister?” She took him for her spiritual director. Later he wrote of this period, “I spared no means of testing her in humiliations and especially in obedience, which I found her very exact in – for one of that age. Of course, I worked hard on detachment in the spirit of St. Teresa, and found her very willing to give up anything and anyone asked of her.” He allowed her to take a private vow of virginity and chastity.
As the time drew near for her to apply to a Carmel, Father suggested that she try one far away from home and her many friends. He suggested the Carmel in Alhambra, California, which had been founded from St. Louis some years before. She agreed. She wanted to giver her life completely to God. She came to Carmel with that “determined determination” that St. Teresa so desired to see in her daughters; and Sister Mary Ann Teresa was certainly going to need such determination.
On August 27, 1931, which at that time was the Feast of the Transpiercing of the Heart of St. Teresa, she entered the Carmel of St. Teresa in Alhambra. She received the holy habit of Carmel, and was given the religious name of Sister Mary Ann of the Holy Spirit. Many years later, when the monastery was established in Georgetown, she added Teresa to it. She said that Mother Seraphine had wanted to add Teresa to her name years earlier while they were still in Sacramento, so now it was time for her to do so publicly.
Several years after her entrance, the Alhambra nuns were invited by Bishop Robert Armstrong of Sacramento to come north and open a house in his diocese. Sister Mary Ann, though still a novice with temporary vows, was asked to go on this foundation. Father Lynck was apprehensive about her going. He foresaw that it would be an undertaking of great hardships and difficulties. His words did now thwart her. Had she not come to Carmel to embrace a hard and difficult life in imitation of her Divine Spouse?
Mother Mary Seraphine, Sister Mary Joseph (a blood sister to Mother Mary Seraphine), Sister Mary, and the two novices, Sister Magdalen and Sister Mary Ann, arrived in Sacramento on December 22, 1935. They immediately set to work readying the old farm house that was to serve as their monastery for twenty years, for occupancy and for the official beginning of their establishment of the Carmel of Sacramento with midnight Mass that Christmas. Like the Holy Family of Bethlehem, our nuns were strangers in the city, very poor and alone. So much so, that that Christmas day they had no dinner to eat. Sister Mary Ann would lovingly recall that it was the happiest Christmas of her life.
After a short time, Sister Magdalen and Sister Mary departed religious life. Some postulants came and went. Then in 1945, Sister Mary Joseph died suddenly of a heart attack. This left only Mother Seraphine and Sister Mary Ann. Mother Seraphine trusted completely in the Sacred Heart of Jesus, as she was certain that He wanted this Carmel in Sacramento.
It was a time of crisis. But the two of them continued on, keeping the horarium, including the ringing of the bell for community acts. Before long, postulants came and some of them persevered. The nuns struggled to pay off the debt of the purchase of the original house. Finally, with the aid of a building fundraising drive, and with a community numbering eleven nuns, they moved into their newly built monastery which adjoined the original house.
As Sister Mary Ann would say, “Every time the community would start to grow in numbers, the Lord would decide to prune it. Pruning makes the plant stronger,” and she would smile. Several years later, the Lord did more pruning. Then, in 1972, Mother Mary Seraphine died. In 1974, Sister Mary Inez and Sister Maria followed her. They died just two days apart.
Before long, we were back to the original founding community’s number of five. Time to give up? Not if your name is Sister Mary Ann of the Holy Spirit! Instead, on the Feast of Epiphany in 1978, she told us:
“My dearly beloved Sisters,
This beautiful feast recalls to mind so many of God’s prerogatives, it is difficult to select one for meditation.
Perhaps for us being so small a community, we may choose to consider God’s Providence. Both the kings and the Holy Family are protected by our Father in heaven.
Reading of the event in St. Matthew’s Gospel, we realize the star had disappeared that had attracted the kings. Only after they had inquired diligently, made use of all possible human aids, did the star reappear and lead them to their desired destination. So we too, when the light disappears and we are left in darkness, must avail ourselves of every possible means to regain the Presence of God. It will return. Then there is the warning of the danger. Herod seeks to kill the Child. The kings return by another route so that Herod cannot interrogate them. The Holy Family flees to Egypt immediately.
From this we learn God does protect us, but He does not spare us inconvenience, discomfort. Trust in Him is our only security. But what peace, what joy, to live with this trust, this faith, this love. And Sisters, in His infinite merciful Love, God is permitting us so to live. Our only hope is in Him.”
Soon it became evident that we could not remain at 2150 Stockton Boulevard. Crime in that area had reached such a pitch that the local police captain told Mother Mary Ann that he could not be responsible for us if we stayed there.
Mother Mary Ann spoke to Bishop Bell, and obtained his permission to relocate the monastery. One of the nuns questioned just how five of us could undertake to pack and move the whole monastery. Mother Mary Ann answered that it would be much simpler to do with five nuns than with twelve. In fact, she thought it was an ideal time to move. We began to understand her, after searching for temporary quarters for the five of us. What would it have been like to find a place to accommodate twelve of us? We settled in a five-bedroom house on five rural acres.
In 1982, we moved into our beautiful new monastery and location in Georgetown. The Lord finally let the plant blossom. Currently we have fourteen members and one new saint in heaven. We still get pruned now and then.
In September 1995, Sister Mary Ann Teresa suffered a stroke that left her paralyzed on her right side. Through therapy, she regained some use of her right hand and arm, but she was never to walk again. She embraced this cross with typical generosity, joy, and childlike abandonment. Our infirmary was to be her abode for the next two and a half years.
While she was still in the hospital following this first stroke, there was a woman Eucharistic minister who brought her Holy Communion. One day, this woman asked to speak to “the prioress.” She was bathed in tears as she explained that she had become angry with God over the death of her son, and had carried this bitterness and anger for some years…but when she had given Communion to Sister Mary Ann Teresa, she had looked into her eyes and had experienced God’s love and forgiveness enter her heart.
Sister Angelus remembers going to visit Sister Mary Ann Teresa after she was transferred to the rehabilitation center at the hospital. “I was amazed to see how, in just a few hours, she had won two patients as friends, both of them suffering from strokes also. These two men were so greatly encouraged by Sister’s beaming enthusiasm, that with each step they managed to take, they would look up and smile at her. Her own intense effort and determination to walk again drew admiration and support from all around her. She truly had a way of turning difficulties that seemed insurmountable into challenges accepted with an athlete’s satisfaction.” The kind of athlete that St. Paul had in mind! All this at the age of 92!
As a matter of fact, Sister worked so hard at therapy that, for fear of her overdoing it, her directors decided to let her return to the monastery and complete the program there. Once home, she regained enough strength to attend daily Mass, Divine Office, meals in the Refectory, and recreation. With the assistance of one of the nuns, or caregivers, she would work on her correspondence.
The following year, she had another stroke, this time on her left side. We later learned that this side of the brain affects the emotions. She went into a deep depression, so much so that she looked like a victim in a concentration camp. This went on for days. Finally, she struggled back to us. Her faith and confidence were still intact. Again she embraced the cross.
Sister Veronica Rose tells us, “When I was beginning religious life, Sister Mary Ann Teresa, who was my novice mistress, took me through the exercise of making the Stations of the Cross. She gave me a reflection at each one. When she came to the Ninth Station, the Third Fall, Sister said to me, ‘at that point, our Lord was so extremely exhausted that He could not get up, and would have liked to consummate His sacrifice right there. But the Father made it interiorly known to Him that it was His Will that He die on the cross. Solely on the strength of the Father’s Will, our Lord was able to get up and resume His journey.’ I was making the Stations of the Cross for Sister Mary Ann Teresa after her second stroke, and when I came to the Ninth Station, it occurred to me that God was allowing her to share in the suffering of His Beloved Son.”
Our beloved Sister was now so paralyzed that she could not move any part of her body without help, except for her right arm. Mentally, she was very sharp. She had great difficulty in swallowing, eating, hearing, speaking, as well as seeing. But she could still smile, laugh, and tease.
In January 1997, she was stricken with bronchial pneumonia, and lingered close to death for several months. Her veins were collapsing and it was next to impossible to draw blood for the necessary Lab work, or to keep her I.V. operating. The community was near to despair to see her in such a condition. She herself was not distressed. She prayed especially for the Church and the Carmelite Order. She sent a message to one of the Carmels: “Tell them [the nuns] to be faithful to what our Lord told our holy Mother St. Teresa He wanted them to be. He wants them to know that.”
Since the expected Lord did not come for her, the prioress told her to ask the Infant Jesus to cure her. She did ask Him, in the dearest tone. Everyone, especially the nurses, marveled at her recovery. Her improvement quickened life not only in her, but in all of us.
Anyone who knew her, realized that she had an impressive devotion to the Infant Jesus. Celia, our postulant, likes to recall: “One evening, when a group of the Sisters went in to visit Sister Mary Ann Teresa, she was very alert and exceptionally beautiful. She was very joyful, telling some of her stories and having all laughing. Every once in a while, she would bring the Child Jesus into the conversation. She asked Sister Carmella Ann to hold up the statue of the Infant Jesus which is in the infirmary and to bless those present. Before leaving, as I said good-by to her, she looked right into my eyes and said, ‘Our little Jesus, He is our King, you know.’ I said yes, He is. She said once again, very seriously but so lovingly, ‘He is our King – always remember He is our King.’ Her words began to come back to me during prayer. I realized she was telling me that it is necessary to live in the truth of that reality: to follow, to base my life on the humility and obedience of the Infant Jesus. She often told us that these two virtues are so needed to live the Carmelite life in depth.”
For the rest of the year, her life in the infirmary was bearable and calm.
In January 1998, she began to have excruciating pain on her right side. Some blood vessels had broken so she was bleeding internally and suffering from a large blood clot which had formed close to her liver. The doctors judged that any aggressive treatment, or further testing, would be too dangerous for her. We brought her home, feeling very helpless. But the realization that she was now so completely in the hands of God, brought us real consolation. We could only pray and stand by her during the next six months of her agony.
She was no longer able to eat or drink. She had to be turned in bed frequently, but even so, she developed painful sores, infections, and rashes. She became so weak that finally she could not even move her right hand to her face. Whichever position she was put in, was most painful to her. In her weakness, we could barely hear her when she tried to speak. Yet she always loved to have the nuns come to visit with her.
After one such visit, one of the Sisters wrote in her journal, “Sweet Jesus, who can tell what it is to live in You? To see Your ineffable light and love infused, pouring through the face of Sister Mary Ann Teresa like beatitude…what is it that she is seeing that makes her face so radiant, her gaze so penetrating with purest love? For days, Sister Mary Ann Teresa has gradually been decreasing, and God’s Presence increasing, a transformation that shows in all her features. The pain that has so often clouded her face is now lifting, evaporating like a fog in the warmth of light. God pours His pure, clear, bright love through her to us without hindrance. She is closer now to God than she is to our world. No one wants to leave her side.”
She had been suffering so long and so intensely, that we began to fear her courage might give way. Who can tell how she saw herself in her own eyes? She was utterly convinced that she had failed miserably in her vocation. She thought she would have to remain a long while in purgatory. It was heartbreaking to hear her speak in that vein, she who had always sung of His great Mercy. It was her final trial of faith.
Just before Pentecost, she began to speak happily about death once more. She requested the prioress to ask everyone to pray that she might die. This being done, it was arranged that Father Harold Bury would offer the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass for her in the infirmary. It was the Vigil Mass of Pentecost. We were all gathered together. The Holy Spirit filled the room, but her sacrifice was not complete. It was touching to hear Father Bury speak to her with sincere love and gratitude. He thanked her for her life of prayer for the Church, the world, and himself.
One day, our Sister Miriam went in to speak with Sister. Since at that time, Sister Mary Ann Teresa was rarely alert, Sister Miriam was delighted to find her responsive. What was even more impressive, was that she could hear Sister Miriam, who said to her, “When you get to heaven, will you please give my daddy my love and tell him that I miss him?’ Sister Mary Ann Teresa replied clearly, “Yes.” Sister Miriam then said, “If he is not there, will you please do all you can to bring him there?” Sister Mary Ann said, “You had better ask him to help me.”
She lingered on. She was usually in a deep sleep because of the medications and pain-relievers that were being administered. Saturday morning, June 6, she insisted on attending Mass with us, as weak and fragile as she was. This, her last Mass, was the votive Mass of Our Lady of Mount Carmel. All her life, and all during her illness, she never wanted to miss Mass regardless of her condition. After the second stroke, she would weep copiously at times, frequently at time for Communion. When asked why she was crying, she would reply, “To think that this great God of ours makes Himself so small in the Host to come to us.”
It was Thursday, June 11, the day the Feast of Corpus Christi is kept throughout most of the Catholic Church, that our beloved Mother Mary Ann Teresa of the Holy Spirit, who had walked the sixty-six years of her religious life so faithfully with God, was gathered up and tenderly carried away by Him into Eternal Life. Shortly after her death, we found a note she had written many years before. It was the only thing lying loose in that room, as though she had left a parting message. It read: “Life in Carmel…living continuously with our loving God…going through life with our hand in His; growing smaller until He carries us.”
We had prayed that the community would be present at the time of her death, and that she would give a parting smile. The community was present. We had just finished singing the “Salve Regina.” The prioress prayed the three “Hail Marys” and gave the invocation: “The Word was made flesh and dwelt among us, that you might dwell with Him in heaven.” Sister gave a little smile, and was gone. The prioress had said to her, “Tonight, like our holy father Saint John of the Cross, you will sing Matins in heaven.” That night, Matins was for the Dedication of the Cathedral of the Blessed Sacrament in our diocese of Sacramento. The day was Thursday, the hour 7:30 pm, the date June 11th.
Saint Therese died on a Thursday at 7:30 pm. June 11th was the date on which she had made her Act of Oblation to Merciful Love in 1895. Our Mother Mary Seraphine had written to Mother Agnes (Pauline Martin, the blood sister of Saint Therese) who was then prioress at the Carmel of Lisieux, asking her to pray to St. Therese that every vocation to our Carmel would become like Therese, a victim of God’s merciful Love. Was it not significant that God chose this day, date, and time to seal for all eternity His espousal with a small, humble nun, Sister Mary Ann Teresa of the Holy Spirit?
Sister adamantly disavowed that she ever received high mystical graces. She would state that a priest had told her years ago that she was too practical a person ever to become much of a contemplative. She agreed with him. She indeed looked upon herself as a poor Carmelite. A poor Carmelite! Yes, so poor and ignorant, that our Lord took pity on her and He Himself came to teach her.
