Served at St. Ann Parish in Charlotte
PHILADELPHIA — Sister Judith Monahan, S.S.J., died July 29, 2019, at Saint Joseph Villa.
A Mass of Christian Burial was celebrated Aug. 2, 2019, in Saint Joseph Villa Chapel where relatives, friends and her sisters in community rejoiced in celebrating a life that for Sister Judy was a “journey inward.”
In Montclair, N.J., parents Lawrence and Helen Lokeman Monahan welcomed daughter Judith into her life’s journey on Jan. 26, 1938. She attended public schools in neighboring West Orange, N.J. She learned heartbreak early in life when her father was killed in action in Normandy during World War II. Her mother lovingly reared Judy and her brother alone until Judy was 11. Her mother later remarried and the family grew with the birth of Judy’s sister Louise.
It was at Our Lady of the Valley Parish in Orange that Judy met the Sisters of Saint Joseph and eventually was taught by them at Our Lady of the Valley High School. After attending nursing school for a year, she soon realized with a generous and spontaneous heart that God was inviting her to serve Him and His people. She entered the Congregation of the Sisters of Saint Joseph in September 1957. Her novitiate began in April 1958 when she received the name Sister Helen Lawrence. In 1965, with a deepening of her inward journey, she made her final profession of vows.
Sister Judy began her classroom ministry as a second-grade teacher. She served God’s people in the dioceses of Camden, Philadelphia, Newark, Baltimore and Charlotte. The longest and perhaps her happiest 30 years of ministry were spent at St. Ann Parish in Charlotte, where she lovingly served youth and parishioners as pastoral associate.
Her warm, welcoming, joyful personality thrived in the South and embraced all whom she encountered. In communal living, her sisters attested to her sense of humor, her novitiate stories of adventures and misadventures, and especially her innate gift of southern hospitality. It was with reluctance, yet generous submission to God’s will, that in 2018 she retired to Saint
Joseph Villa after suffering a stroke.
The life and untiring zeal of the sojourn of Sister Judy Monahan was indeed inward and a testament to the spirit of the Congregation expressed in its Constitutions, that as Sisters of Saint Joseph “we imitate Jesus in His untiring zeal and healing presence; Mary in her living faith and constant fidelity to grace; Joseph in the loving manner of his service and his cordial charity to all.”
The “journey inward” of Sister Judy Monahan, was a genuine, heartfelt focus on God whom she loved and sought and found in all of the circumstances along life’s way. The Congregation rejoices, praises and thanks God that she has reached her destination: eternal life in His loving embrace.
— Sisters of Saint Joseph, Philadelphia