Entered Life:  July 25, 1922   
Entered Religious Life: August 8, 1940   
Entered Eternal Life: March 31, 2015 

“The mind in Thee be also in me.”

Mary was a real scholar with a doctoral degree in English Literature. She loved reading and had almost exhausted the collection at the Wheaton library. In addition, Mary also kept current with America, Commonweal, Theological Studies, and Time or Newsweek. Whenever you visited her at the Life Center she was reading. Mary was an accomplished musician, seamstress, cook, and teacher. She loved nature and music.

Mary Madigan was our go-to person for Mary Ward. We have a wonderful legacy in her writings and recordings and our memories. Mary knew every detail of Mary Ward’s life and all the secular and religious history going on before, during, and after Mary Ward’s lifetime. She shared all of that with us and, in all her sharing, was showing how Mary Ward’s life and messages pointed us to God. Her talks on Mary Ward were inspiring, uplifting, and challenging. For her, Mary Ward was the embodiment of our IBVM charism. So it would be expected that she would select a reading for her funeral mass reflecting Mary Ward’s spirituality. This year is the 400th anniversary of the “Just Soul” vision of Mary Ward. IBVMs all over the world are using this year to probe the depth of this writing. Mary Madigan had embraced Mary Ward’s enduring conviction that God’s action was primary in her life and she endeavored to refer all to God throughout her life.

Mary closed the notes she left behind with gratitude for all God’s gifts – nature, music, imagination, eyesight, books, good health, education, her variety of ministries, the support of her family, her religious sisters, her mentors, and those whose lives she was privileged to touch.

We remember and are grateful for God’s gift of Mary to us – her wisdom, her sharing, her love, her friendship…and her 74 years as an IBVM.

—Jean Frye, IBVM