A funeral Mass for School Sister of Notre Dame Mary de Lourdes Monaghan was offered Dec. 6 at the Chapel at Villa Assumpta in Towson.
She was 72 when she died Nov. 30 of hepatic encephalopathy at Maria Health Care Center in Baltimore.
Born Bernadette Theresa Monaghan and the last of 10 children, she attended St. Joseph’s Monastery School in Irvington and Baltimore’s Institute of Notre Dame in 1957.
She followed in her sister Mary’s footsteps in becoming a School Sister.
Her first teaching assignments were in Baltimore City, at Fourteen Holy Martyrs School, where she taught from 1959 to 1964 and at St. Thomas Aquinas School in Hampden where she taught from 1964 to 1965.
She earned her bachelor’s degree in education from Notre Dame of Maryland University in 1970 and taught at St. Patrick in Havre de Grace (1970-71), St. Jerome in Baltimore (1971-73), and Church of the Resurrection in Ellicott City (1973-77). In 1978, Sister de Lourdes began serving in pastoral ministry at Baltimore parishes. She ministered at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary (1978-1981) and St. Matthew in Northwood (1982-84) before turning her attention to the elderly.
Her ministry to the elderly took her back to St. Thomas Aquinas for a year (1984-85), then to Seton Hill Manor Nursing Home, where she was assistant director of activities (1985-88). In 1988, she became director of activities at Keswick’s Carey House, where she remained for 10 years. In 1998, she was named assistant community representative at Maria Health Care Center, the nursing care facility for School Sisters of Notre Dame on the campus of Villa Assumpta in Baltimore County. She was certified as an activities consultant by the National Certification Council for Activities Professionals and served at Maria Health Care until her retirement in 2005.