At 96, Maryknoll nun-doctor continues in volunteer ministry

Published: 2003-12-31

MARYKNOLL, N.Y. (CNS) -- Like the waters in her favorite poem, "The Brook" by Alfred Tennyson, Maryknoll Sister Antonia Maria Guerrieri flows in and out of rooms and down the corridors of Phelps Memorial Hospital in Sleepy Hollow, visiting patients and offering spiritual comfort. At 96, the missionary nun who spent nearly all of her 69 years of religious life as a medical doctor serving the needy in China, Korea and Taiwan, shows little sign of slowing down as she walks quickly from the car that brings her twice weekly to volunteer at the hospital. "I'm not practicing now, I'm retired," quips Sister Antonia Maria, as she gets ready for another visit. "I don't do medical work, I just chatter, chatter as I flow. It's been a wonderful opportunity to, as I say, take people's minds off the ceiling," she said, during an interview with The Catholic Observer, newspaper of the Springfield, Mass., Diocese, reciting a stanza from "The Brook." "I chatter, chatter, as I flow to join the brimming river; For men may come; and men may go, But I go on forever."

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