By Rita McInerney

They call it “the miracle of the bake sale” at St. Thomas More parish in Decatur.

Who would disagree that raising $2,000 in a one-day bake sale to send eighth grade students on a three-day retreat is a miraculous achievement? That’s what happened, last year, according to Sister Margaret Thomasine Grady.

The Sister of Notre Dame de Namur has been taking eighth graders on this retreat for 17 years and “the children never had to pay a cent. The whole parish helps. The elderly are very generous.”

Each year in January the children go to Blessed Trinity Shrine Retreat in Alabama with Sister Grady and a few other adults. Last year, Father Peter Rau was the retreat master for the second year. For many years, Sister Grady said, Father Terry Young served in this role.

Sister Grady has spent 26 of her 50 years in religion at the Decatur parish. That’s been her choice.

She was one of six religious sisters honored Sunday, May 20, by the Atlanta Conference of Sisters at a reception at St. Joseph’s Village. Another member of the Baltimore province of her congregation, also a longtime teacher at St. Thomas More, Sister Rose Lally, was honored as a 60-year jubilarian.

Sister Grady is now teaching grandchildren of some of the mothers and dads whose children were in her language arts and religion classes back in the 1960s and 70s. While her energy level for long classroom days has diminished, her love for the students is as deep as ever.

She first came to St. Thomas More in 1950, the year the parish school opened. She was third grade teacher for one year then returned to Baltimore where she served as principal and superior for three years.

In 1954, she returned to Decatur for six years as principal-superior. For the first three years she also taught third grade. There were a lot of changes at the time. Immaculate Heart of Mary and Sts. Peter and Paul were both spinoffs from St. Thomas More parish.

“We were so crowded. There were nearly 700 students. We had to have two of every class with 50 or 60 students in each section.” A new addition was added to the school and convent. When St. Pius X High School opened its doors in 1958 four sisters came down to teach there. They lived at St. Thomas More convent.

In 1960 she went north for 11 years, studying and teaching in Washington, serving as principal-superior in another Baltimore school, teaching eighth grade for three years in Ridgewood, N.Y., and finally one year in Philadelphia, near her home in Clifton Heights.

She came back in 1971 to stay. “I’ve chosen to stay. I’ve had the opportunity to make a choice and had the approval of my superiors,” she said.

She enjoys the world of St. Thomas More parish. “First of all,” the children. “They are lovable, generous and have good will.” She finds in them “great potential for tomorrow’s world. They are willing to work with you.”

“All children want to please. They make teaching a joy - most of the time.” And the culture mix at the school; white, black, Hispanic, Oriental is an asset.

“She’s conscientious, thorough and caring. She demands a lot of work from the children,” Al Dugan, computer and remedial education teacher, said. Her own three learned much from her. “She loves the kids very much. She wants them to learn her subjects and she wants them to learn the love of God.”

“She’s very personable. She looks gentle, but she’s a strict teacher. She wants kids to behave, to show respect. She’s not a 1950s nun, she’s a 1990 nun, very serious about what she does, understanding and approachable for both children and adults.”

Her classroom environment, Sister Grady sees as “being order rather than the discipline of the past. There is more of a sharing today, more relaxed. The classroom is more like a workshop where discovery is going on, more hands-on type of learning, more enjoyment.”

“While there has to be order, there doesn’t have to be absolute silence,” the jubilarian believes.

Sister Sallie Bradley, SND, principal at St. Thomas More for “seven happy years,” 1970-77, recalled Sister Grady as “being totally interested in the child as an individual. When you walked into her classroom it was alive.”

One of Sister Grady’s special assignments was that her girls and boys develop their own “creativity notebooks.” She did this to have “each child appreciate God, themselves, nature, other people.”

It helped the students “develop a sense of wonderment,” appreciation of the five senses, she realized. They learned to recognize well-written literature, would choose what they liked and share it in the classroom.

She also had an eight-week section during which the children searched out good poetry and then wrote and shared their own poetic efforts.

Sister Joan McCann, OP, former assistant superintendent of education, recalls how she enjoyed visiting her classroom. “She was so innovative.” She also was impressed by her calming effect on the class.

Father Pat Mulhern, St. Thomas More pastor, appreciates her because “she is a teacher through and through. She has a tremendous devotion to St. Thomas More parish.”

Two years ago, Sister Grady said, she felt the need to reach out to others in the parish. She knew she could not continue the individualized teaching in language arts she so enjoyed. Now she devotes herself to teaching religion to the upper grades. And she retains one of her most cherished responsibilities, preparing seventh grade children for the sacrament of Confirmation.

A shorter school day “allows me afternoons to take care of other responsibilities.” She explained that it’s better to be able to do the food shopping for the convent in the afternoon rather than at 10 in the evening as she did while teaching a full school day. As the only driver among the convent sisters, she is available to take the others around. She also plans the menus and is convent accountant.

Senior citizens are in her care zone. She brings one to church every Sunday, balances the checkbook of another, takes others where they must go.

One night a week she visits an autistic child while his parents take a break. Teddy, 10, “is the love of my life,” she admits with a smile.

“The Lord has sent people along. I don’t plan every day.” With elderly sisters in the convent, she likes to be of service to the community however she is needed.

Even in Catholic elementary school she started thinking about becoming a sister. The thought “pursued” her at Notre Dame High School in Moylan, Pa., where she was taught by the Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur. She made her decision in her senior year and was one of six classmates among the 12 entering postulants after graduation.

That was in 1940. Early in May she returned to provincial headquarters in Ilchester, Md., for a golden jubilee celebration with her high school classmates. There will be a province celebration in July and a parish celebration Sept. 8.

She is one of two children. Her mother, she realized, didn’t want her only daughter to go to the convent although “she kept thinking it was God’s will.” Her father asked her if she was happy each time they visited during her postulancy. “You know you don’t have to stay,” he would tell her.

Once he saw her in the habit he realized she was there to stay.

The first years in the novitiate she was “homesick but happy.” Ever since, although “there have been problems,” naturally, “I’ve been happy in my vocation with the Lord.” With His help, she has found, “everything came through as He wanted it.”

She likes changes brought about after Vatican II. Quitting the habit was no hardship. “I think it helped me relate better to the children.”

Being able to go out and help people, visit them in their home is another gain for her.

She is not pessimistic about religious life but confident that it will continue despite the alarming decline in the number of vocations. “It may be in an entirely different form,” she envisions. “I believe the Holy Spirit is guiding it in the path it’s meant to be.”

Whatever form religious life takes in the future there will be more lay involvement, more associates as some congregations have, she believes.

“God’s work will be done in His way, in spite of us. I have great faith in the Holy Spirit for the future of religious life regardless of the changes.”

She mentions the foundress of her congregation, Saint Julie Billiart, and quoted one of her favorite sayings, “How good is the good God.”