Sister Mary Columba of the Sacred Heart (Maria Assunta Brienza) was born in Fossalto, Italy on September 28, 1943, the youngest of four children. She immigrated to the United States with her family when she was 11. She tells of standing on the dock watching her country recede into the distance as the ocean liner, the Andrea Doria pulled away. The sinking of the Andrea Doria a few years later, made a great impression on her young mind.

Sister Mary Columba’s mother died suddenly and unexpectedly in January of 1961, after a short illness leaving Sister emotionally traumatized remembering nothing of the final months of her senior year. Her father died six short months later, in July. Sister had not recovered from the deaths of her parents; however, she still entered the Dominican Monastery of the Holy Name in Cincinnati on December 8, 1961 and made First Profession of Vows on June 21, 1963, the Solemnity of the Sacred Heart. Her commitment to the Church and to the Order was crowned by the election of Pope Paul VI to the papacy on that very same day.

Sr. Mary Columba had a bright, happy, and outgoing personality coupled with a deep contemplative spirit. She wanted to enter the monastery as a lay sister, but her superiors recognized her leadership qualities and received her as a choir nun. All her life she was happiest when doing the simple tasks of sewing, cooking, cleaning, laundry. She was an excellent seamstress and meticulous in the details of whatever she did. She was also a very able administrator. The 1970’s and ‘80’s were difficult years for the Monastery of the Holy Name, and it was during that turbulent time that she served as prioress for three terms. She made all the arrangements for the closing of the Monastery in 1989 and the placement of the sisters, several of whom needed skilled care.

After the suppression of the Monastery, Sr. Mary Columba along with two other sisters transferred to St Dominic’s Monastery in Washington D.C. (now Linden, VA). But the deep longing for simplicity and prayer prompted her to discern Carthusian life. Returning to her beloved Italy, she spent some months in a Carthusian charterhouse, satisfying her longing for solitude, and at the same time discovering qualities and practicalities of community life unknown to her before. She would have remained, she says, but that the fragility of her health prevented it.

Coming back to the States and St Dominic’s Monastery, she learned that the Monastery of the Holy Name had become an ecumenical house of retreat. Inspired by her Carthusian experience and Pope John Paul’s encyclical letter Ut Unum Sint (That All May Be One), she returned to Cincinnati as a ‘nun in residence.’ It was her hope to “establish an ecumenical monastic community.” Thus, the Mater Ecclesia Institute was born. Under the guidance of Archbishop Pilarczyk and others, these were fertile, fruitful years for Sr. Mary Columba. Several church-related groups found their beginnings in the former monastery – there was the Shepherd Center; and Crossroads, now in eleven locations in the Cincinnati area; Generation Christ was a young adult group that met once a week there and fostered twelve beautiful Catholic marriages in addition to five priestly and three religious vocations. But Sister’s hopes were not to be fulfilled. No other sisters joined her; and in time, amid financial difficulties, the monastery was sold to the Hyde Park United Methodist Church.

The dream unfulfilled and her hopes dashed, Sr. Mary Columba returned to the monastic life of Corpus Christi Monastery in The Bronx, NY. In 2007, Sr. Mary Columba, with two other sisters asked to establish a new monastic community. They settled in New Castle, DE, near a newly founded community of Dominican friars at the University of Delaware. In 2017 realizing that their experimental community was not meant to continue, they returned to their sponsoring community, the Dominican Monastery of Mary the Queen where Sr. Mary Columba continued to live the monastic life until her peaceful demise on January 15th at St. John’s Hospital in Springfield, Illinois.

Thank you, dear Sister, for the beautiful witness of your life. May all your hopes and dreams be realized now in the Heart of Christ and may you rest forever in the arms of the God who loves you. Until we meet again.

Funeral Mass: 11:00 am, Wednesday, January 29, 2025, at the Monastery of Mary the Queen with Rev. Edward M. Ruane officiating. A burial will follow at St. Martin Cemetery in Farmersville.

In lieu of flowers, memorial contributions may be made to the Monastery of Mary the Queen in Girard.

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