Sr. Mary Shimo, Leadership Team Member
A member of the Sisters of Bon Secours’ Leadership Team since 1999, Sr. Mary appreciates how the members gather the evening before the monthly meeting to be with each other. During meetings the devil’s advocate role which she occasionally fills encourages open dialogue.
“Everyone’s opinion is heard and given weight,” she explains, as reports are given, plans are formed and decisions reached. Being on the leadership team has empowered her to see issues from a wider church perspective and she feels a greater responsibility and accountability to the sisters since serving in a leadership capacity.
Sr. Mary lives in Marriottsville, MD, where the Province is headquartered, in a row of apartments with her cat, Georgette, and seven other sisters. “In this arrangement, we have privacy and personal space and yet we relate a great deal, which, to my mind, makes for the perfect combination,” she elaborates.
Working at Bon Secours Hospital in Baltimore, she coordinates the activities of the volunteers and auxiliary members. She faces many challenges as she works with others in effecting positive change in the inner city neighborhood surrounding the hospital. Sr. Mary also serves as Director of the Bon Secours Community Archives.
A life of caring for the body and spirit
“I believe my parents’ spirituality was the conduit for my calling,” Sr. Mary mentions when telling how service and religion were stressed in her Baltimore home. Observing the Franciscan Sisters at school inspired her as well. However, when that order couldn’t promise her an assignment in nursing, a priest recommended the Sisters of Bon Secours, whose health care ministry meshed well with her own desires. She entered our community at age 18 and has lived the charism of offering good help to those in need ever since.
Wearing different hats over the decades, Sr. Mary has cared for patients as an orthopedic nurse, and for 20 years, she has given solace as a chaplain and pastoral care director in three hospitals. She currently serves on the Board of Directors of the Bon Secours Health System.
One family with several children stays in her mind whenever she drives by the house they lived in. She spent a good deal of time with the family’s father, helping him cope with his wife’s terminal illness. She remained close to the entire family long after the mother’s funeral and was present in happier times when the father remarried. She feels grateful to have borne witness to God’s love for them through the best and worst of years. “I have to say, I’m pastoral in my very bones,” she exclaims.
Sharing hope and the Lord’s love
Sr. Mary likes to read and knit and is a real football and baseball fan, especially when it comes to rooting for the Baltimore Orioles.
“What I so love about the Sisters of Bon Secours is how we are truly present to people in their suffering, telling them of hope and of the Lord’s unfailing love. Our ministry is about touching and healing others. I find it easier to relate to people once you have touched them. And we stay faithful to them throughout, not just for an initial contact or a few words of comfort,” she adds.
In fact, people have told her they wish they could jump into her body to feel what she has— knowing the certainty of Jesus’ love.
