Current Ministry Location: Macau, China
Sister Sue was born December 11th, 1943 in Milwaukee, WI. She entered the Maryknoll Sisters on October 18th, 1965 at the Novitiate in Valley Park, MO, after earning a B.S. in Biology from St. Mary’s College, Milwaukee. She pronounced First Vows June 24th, 1968 and Final Vows April 24th, 1976 in Hawaii.
Sister Sue received her first mission assignment to Hawaii in 1968 to teach in Honolulu Catholic schools and coordinate Diocesan Art Teaching within the Department of Religious Education. She described this educational ministry “as a real learning experience for me as it represents a mini global village with many opportunities to share life, culture and love.”
In 1977, Sister Sue was appointed Director of Admissions for Maryknoll Sisters and that same year she received a Master of Arts degree in the field of Religious Studies from the Maryknoll School of Theology at the Maryknoll Society Seminary in Ossining, NY.
Assigned to Hong Kong in 1980, Sister Sue prepared by studying the Chinese Cantonese Language at Briarcliff High School in Briarcliff, NY. In Hong Kong she did pastoral, clerical and educational work in Our Lady of Maryknoll Hospital until 1983 when she began building Christian community with the people in Resurrection Parish in Kowloon.
Acquiring more pastoral experience in her next parish, Saints Peter and Paul in the New Territories of Hong Kong, Sister Sue was responsible for setting up a Laity Formation Center for the Northwest New Territories, and served as its Director for a one year. Sister Sue was also appointed a member of the Diocesan Commission for Formation of the Laity. The Center and the diocesan religious formation programs were preparing for the needs of the people in view of the return of Hong Kong to China in 1997.
Appointed to the Maryknoll Sisters Orientation Team at the Sisters Center in NY, Sister Sue prepared herself with a year of study at the Institute for Spiritual Leadership in Chicago and accompanied Maryknoll Sister Candidates from 1998 through 2000. In 2001, Sister Sue earned a Master of Arts degree in Spirituality from Loyola University in Chicago.
On her way back to China in the early 2000’s, Sister Sue was able to visit one of her great loves, Hawaii, and also help in the summer English program at the Royal University of Phnom Penh in Cambodia. In August 2002, Sister Sue returned to Hong Kong and took some language refresher while looking at ministry possibilities.
Her discernment led her to Macau, also a part of China, about an hour’s ferry ride from Hong Kong. Sister Sue works at the Hac Sa Wan Catholic Pastoral Center as an outreach pastoral worker and continues “with great spirit and enthusiasm” to teach, do some retreat work, spiritual direction, prayer days, spirituality and other workshops, in both Macau and Hong Kong.
A thread running through her mission endeavors has been her ministry with youth both in Macau and Hong Kong. Sister Sue also accompanied a group of young people to Thailand for a week of volunteering in a center for people living with HIV/AIDS.
As their spiritual director, Sister Sue also accompanied eighteen young people from Macau to Germany for World Youth Day in 2005. An estimated one million participated in the all-night vigil preceding the closing liturgy, for many their first experience of the wider Church.