Sister Pauline M. Sticka died on December 7th, 2018 at the Maryknoll Sisters Center in Maryknoll, New York. She was 94 years old and had been a Maryknoll Sister for 76 years.
Pauline was born on November 9th, 1924 in Dickenson, North Dakota to Odelia (Frank) Sticka and Raphael Sticka. She had four brothers and five sisters.
In 1942, Pauline graduated from Good Counsel Academy in Mankato, Minnesota. She entered the Maryknoll Sisters Novitiate in Ossining, NY from St. Mary’s, in New England (Diocese of Bismark, North Dakota) on September 2nd, 1942. At her Reception into the Congregation she received the religious name Sister M. Paul Therese. She made her First Profession of Vows at the Maryknoll Sisters Center on March 7th, 1945 and her Final Profession of Vows on March 7th, 1948, in China.
Sister Pauline remained at the Maryknoll Sisters Center after making her First Profession of Vows and worked at the Seminary kitchen. In 1947, she received her first overseas assignment to Kaying, China to do catechetical work. In December, 1950 she was placed under house arrest by the Communist Regime until 1951, when she was expelled from China and returned to the US. She served for the next several years in the Development Department at the Maryknoll Sisters Center and then did pastoral ministry in Chinatown, in Chicago, IL.
In 1955, Sister Pauline was assigned to Changhua, Taiwan where she did language study for two years and was then assigned to Puli, Taiwan where she did parish ministry until 1967. In 1970, she returned to the Maryknoll Sisters Center to study at Mary Rogers College and earned a Bachelor of Arts Degree in Community Service in 1973. Sister Pauline then returned to Hsinchu and then Chiayi, Taiwan where she spent the next twenty years doing religious education, family seminars, pastoral work, building Basic Christian Communities, facilitating Marriage Encounter Activities, and began a new neighborhood presence ministry to live among the people and get to know who they were.
In 1994 she returned to the Maryknoll Sisters Center to work as Office Assistant to the Main House Council until 1997. That same year she returned to Taiwan where she again served the people in pastoral care, home visits and community ministry, first in Kaohsiung and later in Taichung until 2006. From 2006-2007, she staffed the Regional House and did neighborhood ministry. In 2008, Sister Pauline returned to the U.S. and was assigned to the Sisters house in Monrovia, CA. On December 1st, 2014 she retired at the Maryknoll Sisters Center in Maryknoll, NY.
A Wake and Vespers service will be held in the Annunciation Chapel of the Maryknoll Sisters Center at Maryknoll, NY on Thursday, December 13, 2018 at 4:15 P.M.
A Mass of the Resurrection will be celebrated on Friday, December 14, 2018 at 11:00 A.M. also in Annunciation Chapel. Interment will follow in the Maryknoll Sisters Cemetery.