Sister M. Aidan McCarthy, MM

Born: January 14, 1899
Entered: April 30, 1925
Died: October 13, 1972

Our Sister Mary Aidan McCarthy died at Phelps Memorial Hospital in Tarrytown on October 13th at 11:10 a.m. The wake was held at Bethany, where Sister had lived for the last twelve years, and the funeral Mass was also celebrated there yesterday, October 16th.

Sara Veronica McCarthy was born in Brookline, Massachusetts, on January 14, 1899. She attended grammar school at St. Mary’s, Brookline, and graduated from Brookline High. She took special courses in bacteriology and worked for eight years as a laboratory assistant with the Board of Health in Brookline. By the time she entered Maryknoll on April 30, 1925 she had distinguished herself as a highly respected and extremely capable businesswoman, as well as a dedicated worker in the activities of St. Mary’s parish and an active member of St. Peter’s Mission Circle and other Catholic women’s organizations.

A few days after entering Maryknoll she wrote a short autobiography which ended: “On April 30, 1925 Sara McCarthy arrived at Maryknoll, accompanied by her sister Helen and a cousin from New York. Everything was gloomy that day because of the weather – but when one is starting out on their chosen path, skies are blue. And they are today – May 2, 1925.”

The “chosen path” took Sister Aidan to Seattle (1928), the Motherhouse (1931), Monrovia (1941), the Motherhouse (1944), Chinatown, New York (1945), and finally to Bethany in 1960. The blue skies of Sister Aidan’s early years at Maryknoll were frequently clouded with innumerable periods of recurrent illness, and the years at Bethany were filled with suffering. Let us offer our prayers and especially the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass for our Sister Mary Aidan – and rejoice that at last her skies are blue forever.