This
week, the Mount community will say a final farewell to Sr. Mary Owen Leutloff,
who died on June 6 at the age of 100. The community had grown accustomed to
saying farewell to her at the end of every summer for more than 40 years as she
went out on mission to teach in parish elementary schools in Defiance, Ia.; Atkinson, Neb.; and in
Kansas at Westphalia, Valley Falls, Horton, Topeka, Wamego, Seneca, Marysville,
and Kansas City. Now she is done packing her bags as she has arrived
at her eternal home.
During the past year or so I noticed that Sr.
Mary Owen had a unique mantra, the “ABC song,” which she sang as she patiently
waited for her medications or for meals. It made me think of the following
story:
A poor man found himself in a forest as night
fell, and he had no prayer book to say his evening prayers. So he said, “God
who knows all things, I have no prayer book and I do not know any prayers by
heart. But you know all the prayers. You are God. So this is
what I am going to do. I am going to say the alphabet, and I will let you
put the words together.”
Sr.
Mary Owen displayed wisdom to the end of her days. When Sr. Marie Ballman
congratulated her on her 100th birthday and said, “That’s quite a milestone!”
Sr. Mary Owen replied, “What’s more important is how you get there!” At her 100th
birthday party, she murmured continuously, “Thank you, thank you, thank you”—an
important clue to how she got there. We follow her example by offering
gratitude for her life of faith and service.
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