Sister Mary Kay Himens

(Sister Mary of the Cross) (Deceased)

"I am a book that is ever being written, its chaptered truth revealed in fragments by the vagaries of my life and being as I experience the ‘stuff’ of life itself: growth, loss, love, relationship, failure, triumph, joy, and, above all, the Presence of God."

Olga Kathryn Himens was the only child of her mother’s second marriage. Her half-brother and sisters doted on her. Her father, an immigrant from Russia, delighted in his daughter as she tagged along with him to his job as a wood worker in the northern Illinois town of Antioch.

Teacher-principal-administrator-psychotherapist-lecturer-feminist- consultant - campus minister- poet and even cabaret singer, Sister Mary has experienced a full life. Yet, everything has not been easy for her. A debilitating bone disease kept her from membership in the congregation of first choice. All her life she has experienced pain which she patiently offers for the needs of the world.

After receiving her degree, she was led to a small boarding school in Beaverville, Illinois to be a lay teacher among the Sisters – Servants of the Holy Heart of Mary. There she taught English literature and became “mother” to the young women who boarded at Holy Family Academy Most particularly, she remembers the Cuban girls who came to the Academy in the early ‘60s and whom her loving heart embraced.

Sister Mary says “the Hound of Heaven” pursued her and she became one of the Sisters. Sister Paul Marie, at first the principal for whom she taught, then as provincial superior, then as her companion in ministry in Colorado and her housemate at Georgetown University, D.C., mentored Sister Mary and was a life-long friend and companion.

“A Jesuit, a rabbi and a nun walked into a bar,” sounds like the beginning of a joke. It was, however, a reality of Sister Mary’s life when she was part of a campus ministry team at Georgetown University in Washington D.C. There she counseled student and formed lasting friendships. Some of her friends just happened to be famous: NBA star Patrick Ewing and Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg among them.

Prior to her life in D.C., Sister Mary lived and worked in Gunnison, Colorado. There, she counseled students and helped with liturgies, her beautiful voice leading the congregants. Among them was Vicky Mobley, now Sister Vicky, SSCM.

Because of the pain she constantly bore and the maternal love she bestowed on many throughout her life, the Pieta’, Michelangelo’s sculpture of Jesus being held in Mary’s arms after the crucifixion, was a central image for Sister Mary. That same Sorrowful Mother ushered Sister Mary Kay Himens into eternal life on April 9, 2022. 

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