Sister Margaret Vincent Kennedy, OP
Date of death: April 25, 2005
“I came that they may have life and have it more abundantly.”
Sr. Margaret Vincent led a full life, a life of abundance. The overview of her life in ministry, which I just read, speaks so clearly of the abundance she had and the abundance she shared.
Looking at the ministries through which she served, we see she reached out to youth as well as adults. She mentored youth and adults. She always wanted the best for them.
Margaret Vincent was quick and quick-witted. She walked quickly and she talked quickly. For six years we belonged to the same Community Chapter and so we traveled back and forth from Connecticut together. We also traveled back and forth from congregational assemblies and Chapters. For those longer trips, such as the three to four hour drive to Kings College, Mary Jane would pack us a lunch and off we’d go! As you might imagine, there was never a lull in the conversation. At those times, it seems that we were given the wisdom to solve the problems of the congregation and the world-at-large. She knew what she thought and she wanted to know what others thought.
And, when we traveled together, she told stories. Everything from what her students were doing, as well as when she herself was young. Remembering her mother, who was the organist for St. Mary Parish in Poughkeepsie, she once said, “Mother would play, and Mary Jane and I would sit on the bench beside her.” It looked like her own love of music began by absorbing the music right through the vibrations in that organist’s bench. One of the ways she shared that love was when she trained the students at St. Mary High School in New Haven by producing their musicals each year.
It seemed that she never stopped spending herself for her students. She eventually went on to St. Francis Elementary School in New Haven and as librarian and art teacher. Sr. Margaret Vincent knew how to appeal to the oldest and the youngest student.
Both Mary Jane and she were rich in friends and faithful to their friends. They shared in the joys and sorrows of their friends’ families and extended families.
It’s never easy to sum up a life, but the words that came to me when I knew Margaret Vincent’s health was failing were these: She was, “in all things…Dominican.” And those who know Dominicans know that one our mottoes – one of our rules of life is: “Contemplare et contemplata aliis tradere.” “To contemplate and to give to others the fruits of our contemplation.”
Margaret Vincent did that wherever she found herself. It was as natural as breathing. It was as persistent as a heart beat.
“I came that they may have life and have it more abundantly,” Jesus said.
Sr. Margaret Vincent always wanted more life. She wanted it up to the end.
But, today let us not be like the foolish ones spoken of in the first reading from the Book of Wisdom. Let us not think of her passing away from us as an affliction or call her going forth from us as utter destruction.
Through faith we know her passing away was really a passing through – a
passing through to a greater experience of the grace and mercy and care of our all-loving God.
Jo-Ann Iannotti, OP
April 28, 2005