Sister Mary Elizabeth Beres
1942-2008
Sister Mary Elizabeth Beres, better known as Sister Mary-beth, chose the readings for her funeral liturgy. One of them was her favorite passage, “What does the Lord require of you but to do justice, to love tenderly, and to walk humbly with your God.”
The homilist at her funeral was Sister Donna Markham, Prioress of the Congregation. Sister Donna said in part:
Perhaps it was this beautiful code of living that she wished to share with us during this intimate time… I suspect she has long been schooling herself in these words throughout her entire life. Today she offers us an opportunity to reflect on them not only in reference to her life, but in reference to our own lives of discipleship.
For a time, in the last several years, Sister Mary-beth courageously and successfully battled cancer. In 2004 she was elected Chapter Prioress of the Mid-Atlantic Mission Chapter, and was much loved by the sisters she served. But the cancer finally robbed her of her vitality and ability to carry on her duties. When it became evident that she had lost her battle and that she was no longer able to function as Chapter Prioress, the Prioress of the Congregation appointed Sister Kathryn Cliatt as Vicaress pro tempore. Sister Mary-beth’s mother died in 2007; and God took Sister Mary-beth to eternity on August 12, 2008, at the age of sixty-six.
Her parents were John and Ethel (Belenyesi) Beres, both Detroit natives, and of Hungarian ancestry. They were living in Birmingham, Alabama, when they welcomed their first child on January 19, 1942, and christened her Mary Elizabeth. The later arrival of two other daughters, Kate and Elissa, completed their family. John Beres was an engineer, and provided well for his wife and daughters.
They moved back to Michigan, into the Jackson area, and records show that Ethel Beres owned and operated a dress shop. Mary Elizabeth began her education at Close School in Grass Lake, a small town near Jackson. After a move to Jackson, she continued and finished her elementary years at Queen of the Miraculous Medal with the Adrian Dominican Sisters, graduating from eighth grade in 1956. These years also included seven years of piano lessons. Her high school years were spent at St. Mary School with the Sisters of Charity, from which she received her diploma in June 1960.
She loved her Dominican teachers, and within a few months of leaving high school she entered the postulate at Adrian on September 8, 1960, at the age of eighteen. With her group, she received the habit and her religious name (Sister Marie Jonathan) on August 2, 1961. Profession of first vows was celebrated on August 6, 1962.
The first seven years of her ministry were spent with primary children: two years at St. Francis Xavier in Medina, Ohio; three years at St. Edward in Detroit; and two years at Our Lady of Mount Carmel in Temperance, Michigan. As a result of summer study, in July 1969 Siena Heights College (now University) in Adrian awarded her a bachelor’s degree with a major in mathematics and minors in English and mixed science. In the fall of that year, she was sent to St. Ambrose High School in Detroit as a teacher of math and religion.
In 1970 she began study for three full years at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, in a doctoral program, and received the degree in 1976. In 1973 she taught for a year at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, then spent ten years teaching at Temple University in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The next seven years were at Mercer University in Atlanta, Georgia. During these years she knew sorrow at the death of her beloved father in 1986.
With Sister Joan McCann, a Sinsinawa Dominican and her dear friend, in 1987 she founded Leadership Systems, a Leadership and Organizational Consulting firm that served non-profit firms and Congregations of Women Religious. Sister Kathryn spoke of this organization:
These incredible gifts were shared nationally, and even internationally, as she and her dear friend, Sister Joan McCann, through Leadership Systems facilitated General Chapters for a number of congregations of women religious.
In July 2004, Sister Mary-beth began her term as Chapter Prioress of the Mid-Atlantic Mission Chapter.
At the wake, Sister Kathryn said:
Sister Mary-beth has been a tremendous gift to our Congregation and to so many of us personally. Using her education in Organizational Behavior, she was able to structure processes that would fully reveal the potential of the group or the situation. She believed in, and practiced, collegiality and subsidiarity, and to that end introduced the Open Space Process to our Chapter assemblies, allowing every thought to be expressed and every voice to be heard. Now, to do this was a challenge for her and for us! Sometimes, just when we thought we were near the completion of a project, or were agreed upon a decision regarding a proposal or topic, she would ask an unsettling question. Those of us with the personality types that needed the comfort of nice, orderly conclusions would want to run screaming from the room, “Enough already!” But she liked to “stir the pot,” as she would say, because you never knew what tasty morsel would bubble up from the bottom, one not yet noticed.
Under the Open Space Process, there is no planned agenda for the meeting. The attendees meet, suggest issues that they wish brought up, and these issues are written down on newsprint and posted on the wall. Sisters sign their names under the various issues, and rooms are assigned for them. In these small meetings, everyone is encouraged to speak her mind, and all are heard. Then in a general meeting at the end, reports are given and a secretary writes down the results of each group’s discussion.
Sister Donna Markham said in part:
Sister Mary-beth has given so much to our Congregation and to the extended global community. Her process work with many groups, her generous offering of her talents on behalf of justice and peace, her service to our Congregation as a member of the Leadership Council are just the proverbial “tip of the iceberg.”
I do wish, however, to acknowledge very specially Sister Mary-beth’s early professional work to create the Adrian Synthesis. Through the creation of this instrument, she assisted our Congregation in coming to a deeper understanding of ourselves as we moved wholeheartedly into the process of renewal. I suspect when the history is written about this period in our lives, her work will be seen as even more pivotal than it is today.
In 1968 an institutional management study of the Congregation was done by Nelson Associates. The Adrian Synthesis, an individual attitudinal study, was coordinated by the Redemptorist Center in St. Louis, Missouri, and Sister Mary-beth did the research and analysis of it. In 1972, 1977, and 1981 she did follow-ups on the Adrian Synthesis. All of her work was very helpful to the Congregation. Sister Kathryn also mentioned this study:
She helped us individually and as a Congregation, to see ourselves more fully, and sometimes we didn’t like what we saw. The famous Adrian Synthesis is an example of that. Although the Synthesis was controversial, Sister Mary-beth gifted the Congregation with a clear picture of ourselves and enabled us to move forward through renewal. We thank her for that gift.
Sister Mary-beth’s wake-remembrance service was held on August 17. Present were her sister Elissa and her husband Pascal Viornery; several cousins; several Sinsinawa friends, including her good friend Sister Joan McCann, who ministered with her and took care of her in her last months of life; and many Dominican friends. Sister Kathryn Cliatt, Vicaress pro tempore, summarized Sister Mary-beth’s life and ministry, and spoke of her last days:
For the last few years Sister Mary-beth fought the battle with cancer, engaging in exhausting medical treatments and surgeries as well as trying several alternative healing practices. We are most grateful to you, Joan, for being such a faithful and valiant care-giver throughout Sister Mary-beth’s last months. We are grateful also to the sisters from the Chapter who came to assist you and to be with Sister Mary-beth during these last few weeks.
The Chapter had planned for Sister Mary-beth’s wake. Sister Kathryn had invited the sisters to send in short tributes that could be read at the wake, and many did so. The sisters wrote of their gratitude to Sister Mary-beth for her friendship, for her leadership, for her zest for life and fellowship, for her loving concern for them, for her artistic endeavors, for her patience and kindness, for the Open Space Project, for her commitment to truth, for her transformative presence, for her wisdom and understanding. Many called her a valiant woman, an inspiration, an image of unity, an example of Dominican joy. Their love and respect for her were evident.
Members of the Mission Group to which she belonged, the Sunbelt Mission Group, were all present at the wake, and made a poetic presentation, “A Psalm for the Great Transition (the Dying),” from Prayers for a Planetary Pilgrim. It reveals poignantly their image of Sister Mary-beth. Selected parts are:
Relatives and friends, I am about to leave;
my last breath does not say “goodbye,”
for my love for you is truly
beyond the touch of boney death.
I leave myself, not to the undertaker,
for decoration in the house of the dead,
but to your memory, with love.
And all I take with me as I leave
is your love and the millions of memories
of all that we have shared.
So I truly enter my new life
as a millionaire.
Fear not nor grieve at my departure,
you whom I have loved so much,
for my roots and yours
are forever entwined.
Sister Patricia M. Bombard, BVM, sent a testimonial. She wrote:
On behalf of the Sisters of Charity of the Blessed Virgin Mary (BVMs) and the other religious women with whom I have had the privilege of working as facilitator, I want to acknowledge the great gift that Sister Mary-beth gave to us who sought a more participative, Spirit-led way of being together around decision making. As BVMs, our first fully participative process using Open Space technology happened because Sisters Mary-beth and Joan McCann helped us to specially adapt it for our government structure. I will never forget the gleeful hugs, smiles, and sense of acceptance and accomplishment with which the many sisters who participated in our decision-making process for the first time responded to this effort. Through her work and dedication, Sister Mary-beth helped us, as religious women, model the way for others around inclusion and process in planning and decision making. It is a great need in our new global reality, and no small legacy.
Sister Mary-beth’s funeral liturgy was celebrated on August 18 in St. Catherine Chapel. Father Martin Iott, OP, of the Ashram Community on campus, was the presider, and Sister Donna Markham was the homilist. Sister Donna said in part:
Sister Mary-beth’s body manifested its own particular agony. Her process of self-surrender, of self-emptying, was gradual, sometimes a struggle for her, yet relentless, persistent, and steady. Most of us know that her struggle to hold to life in the midst of her wretched diagnosis over the course of these past several years was often expressed to us in her longing for light and healing energy. As she lived justly and advocated for what was truthful and honest throughout her entire ministerial life, consistently looking out for those who were suffering or somehow not being respected or not heard, her last months have been striking in her straightforward expressions of tender love, openly and directly expressed to each one with whom she had the chance to speak… There was truly nothing, in the end, that separated her from the love of God.
Sister Kathryn ended her testimonial with the words, “We send you shining, Mary-beth, carried by the angels into the arms of your Beloved.” A wonderful farewell, spoken in the name of the Chapter, and, no doubt, a sentiment shared by all its members.