Sister Mary Teresa Morris, OSB

Sister Mary Teresa Morris, OSB, 72, a Benedictine sister of Mount St. Scholastica, Atchison, Kans., died Wednesday, June 5, 2024, at the monastery. The vigil service will be Friday, June 14, at 7:00 p.m. in the monastery chapel, and the Mass of Resurrection will be celebrated there on Saturday, June 15, at 10:30 a.m.

A native of Kansas City, Kansas, she was born October 15, 1951, the only child of T. Harold and Helen Williams Morris. She graduated from Wyandotte High School and attended St. Margaret’s School of Nursing and Donnelly College before earning her B.S. in nursing from Northwest Missouri State University and a Master of Public Health degree from Saint Louis University.

A nurse since 1972 and a member of Mount St. Scholastica Monastery since 1978, Sister Mary Teresa served in hospitals, long-term care facilities, and home health settings. She specialized in caring for the poor, homebound, high-risk infants, and children with special needs, going above and beyond basic health care to minister to the whole person. During the pandemic, she provided infectious disease services at Dooley Center, the Mount’s licensed care facility. Not only a graduate but also a former instructor at Donnelly College, she was inducted into the college’s Alumni Hall of Fame in 2023.

Sister Mary Teresa was preceded in death by her parents. She is survived by cousins and her monastic family. Becker-Dyer-Stanton Funeral Home is in charge of arrangements. Memorials may be sent to Mount St. Scholastica or made online at the Mount’s website.

Reflection for the Funeral Vigil

by Sister Molly Brockwell, OSB 
June 14, 2024 

Deut 15:7-8, 10-11; 1 John 3:18-24; Matt 11:25-30 

On behalf of the community, I offer my sympathy to Sister Mary Teresa’s cousins, friends, and all who love her. Know of the community’s prayer for you atthis time of her death. 

Mary Teresa Morris, our sister, was a complex character, to say the least. In that diminutive package there was a woman with deep wounds from profound childhood losses that she carried with her until her death. Yet the suffering she knew from the earliest years of her life carved space in her heart for a compassion like no other. In whatever way each of us has known Mary Teresa, as community member, cousin, nurse, teacher, friend, colleague, babysitter, client, or patient, we have experienced her compassion and care, her loyalty and love. That short little woman had an outsized heart packed with love for the people in her life. 

In coming to seek Christ in the Benedictine way of life, Mary Teresa took on the yoke of Christ and allowed Christ and the community to help her carry the burden of her suffering. Thus yoked with Christ, Mary Teresa was freed to give liberally to the “poor and needy neighbor” mentioned in Deuteronomy, through her long career in nursing. In her nursing, whether caring for fragile babies and children or doing home healthcare for the very poor elderly, she always went beyond what was strictly necessary to address underlying needs and issues. How many of us helped her in some way with her special patients, whether by building a handicapped ramp into a house or cleaning up a home, or babysitting while overwhelmed parents went Christmas shopping? Certainly, all of us did our part by praying for Mary Teresa’s special patients! 

The First Letter of John tells us to

“love, not in word or speech, but in deed and truth.”

I can’t help but think of MT and the paradox of her often brusque demeanor contrasted with her deep loyalty and caring. A woman of few, well-chosen words, often delivered with deadpan wit, her love language was one of deeds, not words. During the pandemic, she loved us in community by poking us in the nose for Covid tests in the wee hours of the morning week after week, and sanitizing the handrails on the stairs so well that she stripped the varnish right off of them! MT was not one to say “I love you” easily, but she was very fluent in showing her love in these practical ways. 

On the day before she died, I saw Mary Teresa at peace in a way I had never seen before. She was calm, not anxious, offering hugs, saying I love you. Had she finally fully embraced the yoke that Christ offered? Among the last words she spoke were in a phone call to her cousin Jeanette when she said, “I want to go home!” Shortly after that she fell into the sleep that would take her up to her last peaceful breath, surrounded by people she loved, and who loved her. At last, she found the rest Jesus promised.