O Lord, eternal rest grant unto

Sister Barbara Hendricks, Former President of Maryknoll Sisters

Maryknoll, NY. Sister Barbara Clare Hendricks, President of the Maryknoll Sisters from 1970-1978, died peacefully October 12, 2010, at the Maryknoll Sisters Residential Care IV. She was 85 years old and had been a Maryknoll Sister for 65 years.

Barbara was born on September 4, 1925 in Detroit, MI to Marguerite Reynolds Hendricks and Charles Hendricks. She had two sisters and one brother. Her parents, both sisters and her brother have predeceased her.

Barbara attended Visitation High School in Detroit graduating in 1943. She studied for one year at the University of Detroit. She entered Maryknoll on September 6, 1945 at Maryknoll Sisters Center in Ossining, NY from Visitation parish in Detroit. She received the religious name Sister M. Ann Claudia. She made her first profession of Vows on March 7, 1948 and her final Vows on the same day in 1951, both at Maryknoll, NY.

Sister Barbara studied at Maryknoll Teachers’ College receiving a B.E. in 1951. She later attended Maryknoll School of Theology, Fordham University in New York City 1979-‘81 and Catholic Theological Union in Chicago, IL receiving an M.A. of Theological Studies from the latter school in 1982.

Her first assignment was to Transfiguration School in Chinatown, New York City where she taught grades 1 and 3 and catechetics from 1948-’53. In 1953 she was assigned to the Bolivia/Peru Region and studied Spanish in Cochabamba, Bolivia. She continued teaching grade school in Peru, in Lima, Puno and Arequipa.  She was also Principal in Arequipa and in Lima.  She served as Superior of the Sisters in Arequipa and Lima, 1957 to 1966 and as Delegate for Peru Region to the Sisters General Assembly in 1964. She was also Chairperson for the Regional Governing Board for the Peru area 1969-1970. Her years of teaching and catechetics in Chinatown gave her the basic skills she would use in her work over the years: teaching, adult formation, and faith formation in the Young Christian Worker movement and in leadership in the newly formed Peruvian Conference of Religious.

Sister Barbara represented the Peru Region as Delegate at the 1970 General Assembly. There she was elected President of the Maryknoll Sisters Congregation. She served two 4-year terms in this position, 1970-’78. She was an example of servant leadership in the early post-Vatican period when so many changes were taking place in the Church and in religious life. During this time she was also a member of the Global Ministry Committee in the Leadership Conference of Women Religious and a member of the US Catholic Mission Association Council.

Following her terms on the Central Governing Board, Sister Barbara returned to South America to become the Director of Orientation for new Missioners at the Maryknoll Language Institute in Cochabamba, Bolivia,1982-‘87. She was assigned to the Maryknoll Center in 1988 becoming the Manager of Communications in 1988 and then the Director of the Maryknoll Sisters Mission Institute from 1990-’93. In 1993, she began special research on the Spiritual heritage of Mother Mary Joseph Rogers, foundress of the Maryknoll Sisters, under the Mission Research and Education Office. Two years of research on Mother Mary Joseph’s spirituality, 1993-’95, led to her writing a series of essays on Mother Mary Joseph's life and charism and the giving of retreats on this topic to Maryknoll Sisters in Regions around the world until 1999. She was converting these essays into a book on the life of Mother Mary Joseph when her health began to fail. In 2005 Sister Barbara became a member at the Maryknoll Residential Care Unit where she resided until her death.

...and let perpetual light shine upon her.