Oct. 22, 2014

On the First Sunday of Easter , April 24, 1949, Sister Mary Christine Taylor knelt before the altar at the Motherhouse of the Sisters of St. Joseph in Watertown to be consecrated to God as a religious Sister of St. Joseph.The Most Reverend Bryan J. McEntegart , Fifth Bishop of Ogdensburg received her into the Congregation.

Living a vowed life of chastity, poverty, and obedience in a religious community is a tremendous grace from God that frees the religious to serve Jesus and His Church. Sister Mary Christine over 65 years has been one of Christ's instruments to spread His Love to thousands of souls in the Diocese of Ogdensburg.

She has taught children in elementary schools -St. Patrick's School, Watertown, ; Holy Name School, Ausable Forks, and St. Mary's School, Massena. She has been a high school teacher at Augustinian Academy in Carthage, and Immaculate Heart School in Watertown.

In 1963 - 1967 while earning her doctoral degree at St. Louis University, Sister Mary Christine was able to serve the poor of the black ghetto in Missouri and to participate in the Selma march in Alabama to work for voting rights for Afro-Americans.

Work at Akwesasne
Returning to Ogdensburg as academic dean of Mater Dei College, Sister Mary Christine first met the Mohawks of Akwesasne. 

When Minerva Whit , Ernie Benedict, and Lincoln White went to Mater Dei College in Ogdensburg to ask for higher education aid for the Mohawks in October 1972, Sister Mary Christine and Sister Mary Louise Fiedler responded that the Sisters of St. Joseph would bring college courses right to the reservation.

Subsequently, from January 1973 until Mater Dei College closed in 1999, the St. Regis Mohawk Branch Campus educated hundreds, in the evening classes held at the first Akwesasne Library and at Mohawk Elementary School. 

Mater Dei professors made the journey from Ogdensburg, winter and summer, to make possible the education of adult Mohawks whose family and job responsibilities would have prevented their studies for college degrees.
In addition, Sister Mary Christine was asked by Mohawk Elders, Beatrice Jacobs, Christine Garrow, Margaret Lazore, and Chief John Cook to help them begin the St. Regis Mohawk Office of the Aging, and Meals on Wheels Programs, first in a trailer, then in the cellar of the Mohawk Tribunal building, next in its own building next door, and finally today in its beautiful Seniors building on Business Park.

Another visit to Mater Dei College was made by the late Joseph White who asked Sister for aid in the beginning of a program for alcoholics. Again, her request to Frank Augsbury, the first little partridge house with help from Lois Terrance opened in a trailer on Magee Road.

Mater Dei College also enabled Mohawks to earn a college degree in the Alcohol and Chemical Dependence Program.

Today, Partridge House on St. Regis Road is still important in helping victims of addiction.

There was a great need for a medical clinic on the Reservation, and Sister helped in obtaining grants for the first small clinic in the old Mohawk Tribal building that also housed the fist Akwesasne Library. That expanded to the St. Regis Mohawk Health Services programs.

While working evenings on the reservation, Sister Mary Christine received special graces to help educate priests by serving daily as academic dean of Wadhams Hall Seminary in Ogdensburg, for 12 years,following her years of service as Academic Dean of Mater Dei College.

This proved to be of special benefit for St. Regis whenever there was no resident pastor. Sister found priests of Ogdensburg, including Msgr. Giroux Father Richard Sturtz, and Father Jack Downs to administer the Sacraments.
Bishop Terry LaValley continues to appeal for help from the Bureau of Catholic Indians to finance Kateri Hall for St. Regis Parish.

All of the graces of 65 years of religious life culminate today, in Sister Christine's blessed ministry of taking Jesus in Holy Communion each week in their homes and in two nursing homes, I AHKHIHSOHTHA  and TSIIONKWAHNONHSO:TE.

Sister Mary Christine wishes to extend her heartfelt thanks to all of the Mohawks whom she has been privileged to serve in the name of Jesus over 42 of her 65 years as a Sister of St. Joseph. She prays daily for all, and would be most happy if some of our St. Regis parishioners would respond to Christ's call to replace her as a consecrated religious Sister.