Sister Maureen Gunning, MM

Born: May 29, 1931
Entered: February 1, 1951
Died: March 18, 2025

Maureen – our dear “Georgia Peach” – whose gentle presence blessed so many lives, slipped into the waiting embrace of the God she served so faithfully, as quietly as she had always lived, at 1:02 AM on Tue. March 18^th, 2025, in Residential Care at Maryknoll, NY. She was 93 years old and had been a Maryknoll Sister for 74 years.

Maureen Isabel Gunning born on May 29, 1931 in Covington, KY, and grew up in Atlanta, GA. She was the fifth of seven children of George Gunning and Gladys Leach Gunning, in what a priest in her home parish described as “a magnificent Catholic family!” Her parents and all of her siblings – sisters: Pat Reese, Marie Claire O’Leary, Joan Merkle, Barbara Johansen and both her brothers, Tim and Tommy, have predeceased her. She is survived by 28 nieces and nephews, 14 grands and 13 great grands! Today we are very glad to have with us here to celebrate Maureen’s life, Barbara’s son Alec Johansen and daughter Emily Percoraro and Tim’s son Timothy, daughter Nancy Sluby and her son Michael. We also welcome good friends Mary Logan who lived with Maureen in Hsinchu Taiwan and her friend Sue Pope.

Graduating from Christ the King High School in 1949, Maureen entered Maryknoll in Valley Park, MO, on Feb. 1, 1951, stating in her application that her vocation “…came both gradually and suddenly.” She explained: “I suppose I knew it all along, but didn’t realize it,” [until one of my teachers asked] “and suddenly I found myself saying that I did have a call and that it was to Maryknoll!” She made First Vows in Valley Park on Sept. 8, 1953 and her final vows in Los Angeles, CA on Sept. 8, 1959. At First Profession she received the name Sister Angela Maureen, but returned to her baptismal name after Vatican II.

Throughout her life, Maureen was unfailingly described by people who knew her as gentle, kind and caring, with a good sense of humor. You can hear her chuckling at her own quiet, laid-back style in the opening stanza of a poem she wrote in 2009: “Was going to write a poem, but fell asleep instead. My eyelids closed, my mind went blank, not a thing up in my head.”

After first Profession, Maureen worked in the Seminary kitchen for a year and for a second year in Sr. Marie Pierre Semler, MM’s Chi Rho Arts in our Bethany nursing home, where she surely honed her skill at doing beautiful calligraphy. In 1955, she began studies at Maryknoll Teachers College in New York and graduated with a Bachelor of Education in June 1958, when she was assigned to teach First Grade in Los Angeles until 1964. That year she was assigned to the South China Region. She studied Mandarin Chinese for a year, in Kowloon, Hong Kong, before going to her beloved Taiwan. With the exception of two periods of Congregational Service – Maureen served in mission in Taiwan from 1965 until 2008, a much-loved member of the Taiwan Regional community.

Starting in 1965, for six years, she taught English to university students in both Taichung and Taipei and at the same time directed hostels for women university students in both of those cities. After three years of Development work in the US, on her return to Taiwan in 1974, she served ten years as a chaplain for blue-collar factory workers, in the Young Christian Workers’ movement at the Jesuit-run Catholic Social Service Center in Hsinchu. In 1984 Maureen studied the Taiwanese dialect for two years as preparation for what became her most treasured service, a Christian Presence ministry in Chiayi, Kaohsiung and Taichung cities, from 1986 to 1994 and again from 1999 to 2008. During those years Maureen also served on the Taiwan Maryknoll Sisters’ Regional Governing Board for a period of four years.

Maureen, with her dear friend, Sr. Pauline Sticka, MM, raised Presence Ministry – simply walking the streets of the neighborhoods where they lived, meeting people and becoming friends – to an art! In her own words Maureen explained: “Pauline and I began just being neighbors – with no other expectations of ourselves. Wonderful to have the freedom to respond to people in this way – to see their needs, to work with them, play with them, join their activities, make our plans together, and finally, at their request, tell them who our God is! How much more I could say!”

They first began this ministry in 1986 in the southern Taiwan city of Chiayi in the suburb of “Golden World”. There they soon found themselves welcomed like family members into the homes of their neighbors. Friends they made in Golden World have remained in close contact with them until today, including their next-door neighbor, Michelle Liu Chu, a baby when they were there, who visited Maureen at the Center several times in the past few years.

In 1999 in the port city of Kaohsiung, where I had the privilege of living with Maureen and Pauline for five years, we moved – at their request – into a poorer area of the city that was directly on the landing path for the Kaohsiung International Airport. In that neighborhood, at any given moment, either of them could be found in someone’s home giving a foot massage or other service, or in our kitchen, learning how to cook new Chinese dishes from their neighbors or teaching them to bake – brownies being Maureen’s specialty.

It was so obvious how beloved they were from the way neighbors interacted with them. A good example was how the elderly deaf and mute woman who lived nearby – and supported her extended family by recycling – would slap them on the back when meeting them in the vegetable market, greeting them with a huge smile. Or how the wife of the Taoist priest who presided over a small temple down the street from us would loan them stools for the guests at our annual Christmas party and at the same time send with them some of the fruit that had been offered in the temple, to augment our party refreshments! Whoever wished to stop by was always warmly welcomed at any time in our home. An added plus, our house was always filled with laughter. I was so blessed!

Once again in neighborhood Presence Ministry with Pauline in Taichung from 2004 to 2008, Maureen and Pauline both retired in 2008 to the Maryknoll Sisters’ Community in Monrovia, CA where Maureen also served for two years as a member of the Monrovia Coordinating Team. In 2018, she returned to Maryknoll New York to the Rogers (active) Community, and assigned in 2021 to the Assisted Living section of our Eden Community at the Center. There, despite a failing short-term memory, Maureen continued to be her gentle, kind and welcoming self, always totally present to whoever she was with at the moment. She was greatly loved by all who interacted with her, both Sisters and lay staff. We are so grateful to the Eden staff who cared for her with such tenderness, kindness and devotion.

A brief poem that Maureen wrote captures well her spirit and her spirituality:

“MYSTERY Lies
In the depth of Life,
Which began
With the gentlest touch
OF LOVE.”

We welcome our Maryknoll brother, Father Paul Duffy, who served in Taiwan, who will celebrate the Liturgy of Christian burial for Sister Maureen.