Sr. Josepha McNutt, MSBT

Sr. Josepha McNutt, MSBT
of the Infant Jesus
Born: June 14, 1919
Died: October 7, 1999

In Memoriam

This page is in honor of the late Sr. Josepha McNutt, M.S.B.T. It is intended as a repository of remembrances of this outstanding person who touched so many lives with her gentleness and goodness. You are invited to submit your comments on how Sr. Josepha influenced you. Your responses will be reproduced here. Please send your comments to poboln@lsu.edu.
The image below is a photograph of the cross erected near the spot where the tragic accident occured on October 7, 1999.

The following is from the October 29, 1999, issue of The Cenacle Newsletter of the Missionary Servants of the Most Blessed Trinity:

    The basic facts of her life sound so prosaic compared to the dynamic and appealing person that was Peggy McNutt, or Sister Marie Josepha! But let us begin with the facts. Born in Long Island City, NY, the middle child, between two brothers, Sister Marie Josepha attended the parish grade school, Hunter College High School, and then Hunter College from which she graduated with a degree in Business Administration. Later as a member of the MSBT, she would graduate from Catholic University of America with a Master's Degree in Religious Education. Through friends she came to know Dr. Margaret Healy and became a member of the MCA in 1940. In February, 1944, Peggy entered the Missionary Servants of the Most Blessed Trinity. The following August she entered the Novitiate and received the name Sister Marie Josepha of the Infant Jesus. She made her first profession of vows on August 15, 1945, and final profession on March 25, 1949.
    Her mission assignments took her to Croagh Patrick in Cambridge, MA, then to Norwood, MA, where she also served as the "Mistress of Postulants" until 1958. In August of that year, Josepha came to the Motherhouse to be the Director of the Novitiate for the next ten years. From there she went to Beloit, WI; Lorain, OH; Auburn, AL; Kiln, MS; L'Arche in Mobile, AL, and finally to Holy Trinity in 1984. She was engaged in religious education, apostolic formation, campus ministry, and spiritual direction. She was certified to offer the Progoff Journal Workshops, and had 100 hours of training in Transactional Analysis. During her last years she also served as National and Regional Spiritual Guide for the MCA. She is the author of Margaret, Called and Chosen, the biography of her beloved Margaret Healy.

    So much for the bare facts. What we will all remember about Josepha is best described in her own words. She wrote: "Having received a great deal of love in my life, I am happiest when sharing it with others. Not that there haven't been difficulties and hurts... but the pain of them has made me more sensitive to the feelings and needs of others. All my happiness comes from the relationships I have with people and ultimately with God. I see Him as the source of all I have, and desire to make the most of my gifts in the service of others...

    Sister Marie Josepha was killed in a collision with a logging truck on October 7 while driving from the Retreat House to the Post Office, a trip she had probably taken hundreds of times in her 15 years at Holy Trinity. Her wake was an outpouring of love, attended by the wide variety of people, young and old, whose lives she had touched. Those of us who were her Novices remember hard work, fun times, deep devotion to the Trinity, and an overwhelming apostolic zeal. Sister with whom she lived remembered kindness done in a sometimes absent minded way. But everyone remembers her great devotion to the Little Flower, whose love she emulated in a striking way. The young people in the Junior MCA she was guiding, people who had attended her workshops and retreats, priests for whom she was a model of selflessness, all could attest to the depth of her love. May she rest in peace!

Like so many others, I would not be a member of the MCA if not for Josepha. During my second retreat at Blessed Trinity Shrine Retreat, Sister Josepha approached me about MCA. I did not even know what it was. She explained it and kept telling me, "You have our charism." For well over a year she encouraged me to become a candidate. I am now a member of Heart of Jesus Cenacle in Montgomery, Alabama.

Sister Josepha was an exceptional person in my life. Through her guidance and encouragement I came to a better understanding of my own faith and of myself as a person. Her acceptance and understanding always made me feel so welcomed. She has helped me in ways too numerous to mention. She was a wonderful friend and mentor. I felt that she was my Spiritual Mother. She will live on in my heart.

---Emily Whitley, M.C.A.

I met Sr Josepha in about 1988 at the Blessed Trinity Shrine Retreat. She made a tremendous impression on me for her joy in the Lord, for her confidence in the Lord, for her most remarkable faith, as well as the excitement and energy she had for her work. Her freedom in the Lord blessed me and her personal relationship with Father, Son and Holy Spirit was so genuine that I truly felt God heard and answered her prayers in a very special way. I have great respect for Sr Josepha's writings and thinkings.

I hope you will continue to make her work available.

---Sincerely, Nancy Needham

My first encounter with Josepha took place in Ohio where she worked with a diocesan priest in campus ministry at Oberlin College. She was such a power for good not only to the students but for us priests. She constantly challenged us in her quiet questioning way to grow into a Vatican II response to situations. Always gentle but always challenging. I can say she helped direct my development both at priest and Cenacle Family Member. God grant her the peace she so richly deserves.

---Fr. Bill Burkert, St. Roman Parish, Milwaukee WI.

SWEET SISTER
A piece of me goes with you
sweet sister.
A piece of you stays with me.
Tender presence
that shone one day
on my journey,
with a light that still shines
delicate, tender, happy,
vitally near.
Your generosity, your profoundness,
your kindness, among others
remain imprinted
to continue holding you in their grasp
to continue singing to the heavens
a song of thanksgivings
for your beauty.

To our loving Sister Josepha
on the day of her departure
and her arrival.
Bro. Alexis Zúniga, S.T.
7-OCT-1999
DULCE HERMANA
Contigo se va un pedazo de mi
dulce hermana.
Conmigo se queda un pedazo de ti.
Tierna presencia
que resplandeció un día
en mi jornada,
con una luz que todavía brilla
delicada, tierna, alegre,
vitalmente cercana.
Tu generosidad, tu profundidad,
tu gracia, entre otras tantas
quedó impresa
para seguir teniéndote,
para seguir cantando al cielo
una acción de gracias
por tu belleza.

A nuestra amada Hermana Josefa
en el día de su partida
y su llegada.
Hno. Alexis Zúniga, S.T.
7 de octubre de 1999

Sr. Josepha was the most loving, caring, compassionate, sensitive and spiritual woman I have ever known. She was a role-model to me of a person who put God first in her life and the fruits of the Spirit were given her in abundance. I know it sounds presumptuous to think that she is with the Lord already, but for selfish reasons I want to believe that and pray to her for all Cenacle members. She will intercede for us all in all our needs. Now we have Fr. Judge, Mother Boniface, Margaret Healy, Mother Marie and Sr. Josepha sitting by the throne on our behalf. God loves her and so do I..

---Virginia Lacina, M.C.A.

We all remember that beautiful little lady, Sr. Josepha McNutt. She was so small in stature, and yet so large in heart.

One of my favorite memories of this spirit-filled woman took place at the Missionary Cenacle Family Council Meeting in Philadelphia . It was her birthday. Knowing how she would skoot around on her tiny little size four feet, Marvine Waite [the General Custodian] suggested that we get her a new pair of Easy Spirit shoes. So I went shopping at our mall in Lorain, Ohio. I had a hard time convincing the sales woman that these were for a sweet little lady in her "Golden Years."

As our Council meeting was coming to a close Marvine requested that Sr Josepha take her place on her "Throne." As her "Attendants" removed her well-worn tennies, and proceeded to place her sparkling new Easy Spirits on her tiny feet, she began to cry tears of great joy as the group of admirers sang "Happy Birthday" to her.

No longer will there be tears for Sr. Josepha. There will only the Joy of being with her Lord and Savior. (Can't you just picture her running all around heaven in her "EASY SPIRIT"?)

---Debby McDermott, M.C.A.

[The following is from Margaret Hayes, General Custodian of the Blessed Trinity Missionary Institute.]
Sr. Josepha wrote [the following prayer] in honor of Dr. Margaret Healy. Feel free to use it if you wish.

+
O Most Holy Trinity, I adore Your infinite majesty with all the fervor of my soul. I thank you for all the gifts and privileges accorded in Your bounty to your servant, Dr. Margaret Healy. I beg You to glorify her on earth and for this purpose I supplicate You to grant me through her intercession the grace I now humbly implore. Amen.

Sr.Josepha McNutt, MSBT, was 80 [years old] and a person of great faith. She was the director at Blessed Trinity Shrine Retreat at Holy Trinity for 15 years. She was also our Spiritual Guide for our Missionary Cenacles in this region from North Carolina to Louisiana.

Sr. Josepha would wake up at 4:30 a.m., pray, and then work at kitchen duty, giving retreats, welcoming retreatants, corresponding with anyone who gave a donation to the retreat center and anyone who wrote her from the many retreatants who came to Holy Trinity. I found this out when I attended her wake. The small chapel at the Retreat center was packed (over 250 folks) of every color and age, from all walks of life and all faiths who came from all over the USA to pay tribute to this short (5 foot, gray haired, blue eyed woman, who always had a smile and hug for everyone and tears that would appear without warning when she spoke tenderly of anyone). Or when she would speak of God in loving terms. She touched so many lives by her own love and witness to people at all times.

She was Spiritual Guide to some very smart and well known folks to include Priests, Doctors, and the gardner at St. Joseph's. She would swim daily, and encourage the gardner to "get out of the sun and take a break". He would watch her swim, then go back to grass cutting. Others at the wake stood and told personal loving stories of how she had touched their lives with little thoughtful things she would do. She was as close to a saint that I think I have ever met. I have made a little donation monthy for many years to help the retreat center, and every month she would write a personal letter back, thanking me for the sacrifice which in comparison to the sacrifices she made for the "love of God" and the spread of God's Word seem so very little in comparison.

She had the gift of making you feel like you were the most important person in her world. She was such a gift in my life! I already miss her. Her funeral was much the same...the little church was packed, standing room only out in the hall. Fr. Dennis spoke of the holiness of her life. He was her Spiritual Guide, but he said it was always she guiding him. She is buried in the cemetery on the grounds there at Holy Trinity. She said once to Fr. Berry, that she wondered at her prayer life near the end, as she was down to 2 prayers, I share one that was on the back of her card at the funeral "Silent desert, ground of being, O Most Holy Trinity, Father, Son and Holy Spirit." This had become a mantra for her life. She would pray it as she walked, and as she swam. She took great comfort in saying and living a life full of prayer. Her whole life was a prayer.

---Joanne Jones, MCA Regional Custodian, Trinity Region (Southeastern United States)