Ruth Rosemary Ott
November 16, 1924 - November 2, 2004
Eulogy preached by Sister Rose Bowen, OP, November 5, 2004
The person who has conveyed to me the most real concept of the Eucharist is Sr. Mary Aloysius. Why was she so able to speak to me so forcibly about the Eucharist when she hardly spoke about it at all? Was it because she was so often concerned about feeding people? Perhaps. But it was more than that. Much more. Yes, she was concerned about food. Yes, she could at any time be involved in fixing food. If her TV was on in the hospital, you could bet that it was channeled to a religious program or a food program. Cooking was her hobby. She cooked food and gave it out in abundance. But she did more than offer food by either cooking it or serving it. She offered substance. She offered herself. Her stuff was good because it was the stuff out of which love was made.
Sr. M. Aloysius did many things in her life. She was a teacher, a compiler of medical records, an administrator. And all of these ministries were done as a Dominican, as a preacher. The Dominican charism is preaching.
The best homily I ever heard her preach consisted of one sentence: “If you ever have a chance to do something for someone and you miss that chance,” she said, “you may never get it back again!” I only heard her say that once, but she preached it by living it every day. Every chance for service was for her a graced opportunity, one not to be treated lightly, one certainly not to be missed.
Her quiet manner was a power to be reckoned with. In her twenty-four years as Administrator of Metairie Manor, she oversaw the building of three residence halls, and she managed all 369 apartments. A visit to any celebration at Metairie Manor was to witness the fact that it was bursting with spirit— her spirit. The residents caught it, and the visitors felt it. But her greatest accomplishment was her discipleship.
When the disciples approached Jesus to ask for food for the hungry crowd, he said, “You feed them. “ And as physical food from Jesus or his disciples pointed to the greater reality of spiritual food, so it was with the nourishment that Sr. M. Aloysius provided. She did what Jesus commissioned the disciples to do. She fed. She fed body and soul with the warmth of her spirit. During one hospital visit, as I saw her lying there with tubes and many blue marks, evidence of all the times that we refer to as being “shot up,” she related the Thanksgiving meal for the residents of Metairie Manor, detailing the wine service, and how much of this and how much of that would be forthcoming. When she finished, she said with a satisfied twinkle in her eye, “That will give them a nice meal. “ So, no matter where she was, her pleasure came from thinking about how to make others happy. “What can I do for you?” was a thought never far away from her speech, sharing herself as Jesus did in the Eucharist.
I visited her fairly often and was astonished by the courage and composure with which she accepted numerous operations and long-term suffering and hospitalization. The week before she died, she acknowledged that after two amputations, and further operations that she was having a hard time. In addition to admitting that, she felt it necessary to add that she felt like a sissy for complaining. In the Gospel stories, we find reference to a God who searches us out, wants to come to us, who gives the very Self of God to us in Jesus and in the Eucharist. That same God has searched out Sr. Aloysius, has turned the tables on her by being her host and is now feeding her with the delights of the heavenly banquet.
We are blessed to have this insightful eulogy from Sister Rose, capturing an essential ingredient of a remarkable sister. It would take a book to tell the story of her life, her winning personhood, her gift of making you feel you were special, and her innate goodness. She was born in Gretna, on the West Bank of the River, and died, as it happened, in Gretna. Her “little brother,” Stanley, became a bishop, and he too, is revered as a saint. They and their brother Manuel had to be children of the most loving parents!
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